The Hay Wain
by A Benediction
Summary: Much of Sherlock's past is ugly and troubled, as John abruptly finds out - and almost wishes he hasn't.  Yet maybe he can be the one to reconcile that past with the present and future?  **Some scenes will be of a disturbing nature**  Please read & review
1. Kind

**The Haywain**

**Kind**

Everyone was kind. So very kind. Grandmere. The doctors and nurses, who didn't dress like doctors and nurses at all. The teachers, and usually even the horrible other children, at school. The milkman, the postman, the bus conductor, Mr Reddy at the village shop, Pat who came to do the cleaning twice a week: even his older brother, when he was home from school, treated him with unfamiliar gentleness, which made him feel looked down upon.

He was sick to death of kindness. Always a festering, resentful anger, just below the surface, that they should dare to show him pity, all of them, acting so kindly, as if they were the strong ones and he was weak, and there was nothing he could do about it. So sick of kindness. So much so that he felt a paradoxical gratitude when Wayne, the school bully, bored of restraint, taunted him about his Mum "in the nut house", giving the bottled up rage a chance to escape.

He had hit Wayne as hard as he could with a rock. Wayne, much bigger than him, had retaliated of course, but he had had the initiative, and all those months of karate training, meant to enforce discipline in him, instead allowed him to lose control entirely. When they dragged him off, screaming and flailing, both of them were bleeding freely. Wayne needed stitches.

Now people added speaking in hushed tones around him to their list of annoying habits. His brother was called home from school to speak to him. He expected, at least now, to be disciplined. Yet his brother was _still_ kind. Why couldn't everything go back to the way it had been, before Mum got ill, before Father decided it was all too much, and upped and left?

He wanted to sit with Mum, and accompany her on his violin, she on the piano, until the outside world, with its taunts and expectations faded away, leaving only the abstract, logical yet beautiful, world of music. She was the strong one, the strict one, yet the one from whom a word of praise meant more than when it came from anyone else. And failing that, his brother could always be depended on to enforce rules and generally be a stable rock in a world that disturbed him by its ever changing nature, but who now came into his bedroom, and was standing there with that sheep-like, _kind _expression on his face.

"Will."

"Mike." He kept his tone haughty, cagey, trying desperately to provoke a more normal response from his older sibling.

"Your face is quite a mess, little brother, isn't it?" He followed this infuriatingly obvious statement by tenderly brushing the hair off Will's forehead.

"You're putting on weight again, big brother, aren't you?"

Mike sighed. "It isn't working, you and Grandmere, is it? She is finding you hard to cope with, and it sounds like things aren't much better at school. Mr Wright tells me you have become far more… difficult… recently."

"Mr Wright's stupid! He's never liked me anyway!" Will couldn't help himself from indignantly retorting to injustice, especially when it originated from his despised schoolmaster.

"The first point is unfortunately true, but perhaps if you made your belief that it is so a _little _less evident, the second point may not have been so also. Belittling one's teachers is not the expected behaviour at primary school."

Will took a moment to work this out, then scowled. Mike was still using his soft voice, and it just made the world seem more splintered and out of kilter. Too many sights, colours, observations, all crushing in at once, and it was too much without some external source of order.

Mike had walked to look out of the window. He then turned, and began speaking again, and his voice was a little more normal.

"Grandmere does not feel able to continue looking after both you and Mummy, Will. She is old, and her health won't allow for a recalcitrant grandson and a sick daughter. She has asked me to make alternative arrangements for you."

Will brightened at this a little, pushing thoughts of Grandmere to the back of his mind for now.

"Can I come to school with you?"

Mike sighed. "No, you know they don't take boys until they're thirteen…" Will opened his mouth, but his brother forestalled him with a raised finger "… and before you say it, I _know_ you are far more intelligent than the average thirteen year old, but they are inflexible on this point. There are many other differences between nine year olds and thirteen year olds, which you will learn as you grow older."

"So, what then", gritted out Will, as rudely as he was able.

"I would like you to stay at Oakweald; if only for your music. I feel you need a stronger hand on the rudder, though. Fortunately, Mummy's trust fund is for just this sort of contingency. Grandmere and Uncle Avery both agree that it would be appropriate to release enough funds to allow Uncle Avery to transfer his work here and to look after you.

Will leapt to his feet, smiling for the first time in what felt like weeks. "Uncle Avery's coming to live here? Really? When's he coming?"

Mike was smiling at him. "I thought you'd be pleased. He'll be arriving on Friday evening, late, after your bedtime – and don't think to ask if you can stay up – you know what he'd say!"

Will grinned beatifically. His Uncle Avery was his favourite relative after Mum and Mike. A formidable figure of a man at six feet four inches, which, to the small-for-his-age Will made him a giant. He was rigorously intellectual, and would always teach his nephews many new and interesting things whenever he visited. He had a booming, incredibly infectious laugh, and he laughed often. He was magnificently athletic, and would take Will on the most amazing countryside walks, pushing him into climbing the local cliffs and running down steep slopes keeping his balance – he never fussed or allowed petty things like danger to put him off. He was also strict, and quite a harsh disciplinarian, and, far from resenting the authority as he normally would, in the confusing world he was in at the moment, Will wanted someone strong, and wanted to be led.

On Saturday morning, he rushed to embrace his dressing-gown clad Uncle (after knocking politely at his door, of course), and laughed ecstatically as he was lifted up and swung around. Later that day, they went for one of those amazing walks, and they climbed the disused Deep Dene Quarry together, with no safety gear. It was exhilarating. His Uncle also promised to "beat the living daylights out of him" if he got into any more inappropriate fights, or exhibiting any more unacceptable behaviour. It was wonderful.

As Will walked to school the following Monday, his suspension for fighting over, he truly felt happy for the first time in ages, and was sure that nothing so good short of Mum getting well again could have happened to him. Had anyone told him how wrong he was, how appallingly, horrendously, disastrously, tragically wrong, it is doubtful he would have believed them.

-oOo-

_An ominous beginning. I had better warn you, it is deserved. Things start to get very dark in the next chapter – nothing graphic, but possibly very upsetting. _

_ Please read and review so far._


	2. Chapter 2: Dark deductions

**Chapter 2**

**Dark deductions**

Sherlock put down his mobile and groaned. The first promise of an interesting case for three weeks, and he would have given a good deal not to go, as he was fighting the early stages of 'flu, brought home from work by John.

His flatmate, his doctor's immunity no doubt hardened to mere pathogens, had sneezed, wheezed and snuffled slightly for four days, spending one of them in bed and one on the sofa, and then been perfectly well again. Sherlock, succumbing three days later, wasn't used to other people's nasty viruses, and he had the feeling he might be in for the long haul. However, effort though it was, he wouldn't be defeated by a paltry microbe, especially not if it was, as John suspected, the embarrassingly named swine flu.

He swung his long legs off the sofa, and sat up. The movement brought on a paroxysm of coughing, then sneezing. He stifled it in yet another tissue, and morosely inspected the contents. Ugh. Purulent, fluorescent green. Probably indicated bacterial superinfection. Perhaps he should have taken better care of himself. Ah well, plenty of time for that, when the case was finished.

He struggled to his feet, battling a wave of dizziness, and staggered towards the door. John appeared from the kitchen, and barred his way.

"Where are you going?"

"Lestrade. Body; some unusual features. The victim had no business being in the house. You coming?" croaked Sherlock, economically, pretending not to notice the gathering _cumulonimbus_ in John's expression.

"For God's sake, Sherlock. You're in no fit state to be chasing around crime scenes in the cold." He fleeting lay the back of his hand on the recalcitrant patient's forehead, and Sherlock closed his eyes at the cool, tender touch. "You're burning up, mate."

"You've been washing the dishes in cold water again because you can't be bothered to run the hot water through. You'll be totally inaccur…"; Sherlock interrupted his own pedantic argument with another coughing fit. _Ow._ All his bones felt as if hot spikes were being driven through them, and the juddering coughs threatened to splinter them altogether. His head pounded, and he very nearly humiliated himself by vomiting over John's shoes, swallowing the bile back down again by sheer voice of will. He despised his own weakness.

"Please, Sherlock. Go to bed, and I'll fix you a hot lemon and honey; you know you actually like that", wheedled John, but Sherlock was adamant.

"Later. I promise I'll lie up and take Tamiflu and more Paracetamol and Ibuprofen very soon, and you can wait on me hand and foot if it pleases you, but the work has to come first. How do you expect me to relax in bed when I know I'm needed at a crime scene?" _That last bit sounded very whiny. Come on, man, shoulders back, chin up._

John, even the long-suffering good friend, sighed. "I'll come with you then. Talking of drugs, are you up to date with everything? Lowering that temperature won't get you better any quicker, but it'll make you _feel _better very soon."

"It's another two hours before I really should take anything."

"I note the "really". Can I assume you've already taken twice the recommended daily amount?"

"Oh, come on, you know they're only guidelines. If a six stone little old lady can take the standard dose, I can take twice that, no problem."

"Yes, Sherlock. Right, come on then."

Sherlock's magical taxi summoning abilities obviously depended on his good health, as they failed today. They had to walk for ten minutes to the nearest rank, in the beginnings of a raw, cold drizzle. The detective, suddenly very aware of his slender frame, shivered convulsively throughout the cab ride, resting his forehead against the cool glass. He was regretting his decision, if he was honest, and was contemplating apologising to Lestrade and turning straight back around, but he must have dozed off, because they were drawing up outside their destination. _May as well take a quick look._

Warily, he stood up, fumbling in his pocket for the fare, somewhat to John's surprise. Someone had let off a Catherine wheel inside his head, rendering his world hideous. Abruptly, his stomach protested the frantic whirling, and he was violently sick in the bushes of the front garden. Wordlessly, as he tried to get his breath back, John produced a bottle of water from his coat and handed it over. Sherlock smiled weakly at his preparedness.

"Doing some deduction of your own, doctor?"

"Not difficult, mate. What do you want to do, go on or go back?"

"Half-way house. Quick look only. Hope they've got a sofa. Lestrade can get a car to give us a ride home. I don't normally allow it, but I might on this occasion."

He started towards the front door, eyes on the garden path. The front door opened, and Sally Donovan stood there.

"Bloody hell, Freak, mate, you look like death warmed up. I saw you chundering in the bushes – shouldn't you be in bed? Wotcha, John."

She actually sounded almost kind. Sherlock smiled thinly. Had he been well, he would have scowled instead.

"Don't come out. I'm just examining what's left of the evidence on the path. Hm. Have you seen this doormat?" He also leaned forward to look at the doorbell, then proceeded into the house.

Lestrade looked up as the two of them entered.

"Oh my God, Sherlock! You look sick as a dog. Got flu? Anderson's got it too, hacking his guts up upstairs at the moment."

"What a lot of unoriginal 'sick' metaphors I'm getting today. Yes, Lestrade, I have flu, and I feel sick as a parrot, like ten kinds of shit, whatever you want to term it, and I would really like to go home to bed, but now I'm here, I'd rather my journey wasn't wasted, so could I please see…"; his sentence was cut of by more coughing, and he had to sit himself down on the chair in the hall.

Attempting to recover his dignity, he croaked out; "Story, Lestrade."

He quietly blessed the Inspector's tact as he made no further fuss, just commenced his narrative.

"This is an empty house; was rented furnished, but it's between tenants at the moment. Looks like the key had been under the doormat. The victim's through here. No forms of ID, no reason we know of for him to be here, quite smartly dressed guy, nasty business – you'll see what I mean. We wanted to see if you could give us any advance info, particular identifying details, while we're waiting on forensics."

He swung open the door to a dingy living room, and John gasped in disgust. A man lay on the floor, his face, to John's fanciful imagination, still betraying an expression of horror. He had been stabbed, once in the chest, and then what appeared to be multiple times in the groin. He had obviously been alive as the wounds were inflicted, as there had been copious bleeding, and he appeared to have tried to crawl towards the door before being overcome by his wounds. It was a gruesome death.

Sherlock crouched to examine the body.

"Anything been touched?"

"Been through his pockets. Nothing there but a wallet, but no ID in the wallet. Just cash."

Sherlock examined the wallet. "There have been cards in here, but they've been removed. Before death, as blood's soaked right through." He then re-searched the pockets of the man's designer jacket and jeans. "You missed this." He said, holding up a small, shiny object. "They're called _condom pockets_ for a reason."

Lestrade looked embarrassed at this, although, to be fair to him, the pocket had been almost underneath the body, and the condoms would certainly have been found when it could have been examined more closely.

"He was called here. He stood on the doormat, shuffling about, after he rung the bell. He was the last person to ring it, look at his fingerprints - tented arches; that's quite unusual, and matches the print on the bell. He also leaned forward to look through the spy hole." He sniffed the body.

"Expensive cologne. Quite freshly applied, not long before death, but would still have been early afternoon, so likely to have been applied specially."

The first few buttons of the corpse's shirt were open. He peered down the front of it, then gave a little exclamation and opened the rest of them, somewhat to Lestrade's discomfort.

"Well well." He spoke lightly, but suddenly he was feeling sick again, and oppressed. _My defences are down. I'm never at my best with these cases, but I'm really not sure I'm coping here._

Several messy fresh love bites sprawled down the man's chest, and, when the cuff was rolled back, older chafed marks were evident.

The consulting detective stood up slowly. His head was spinning miserably, and the all-over racking pain was intensifying, but for the moment, these matters seemed the least of his woes, and the body on the carpet the largest. He forced himself to speak calmly.

"These marks were probably made today, He was stabbed in the chest as it was happening. My guess is he didn't die straight away; hence the subsequent wounds. That speaks of a premedicated execution, yet where the killer, inexperienced, lost their head and panicked, but also was carrying a lot of anger around with them at this man. You don't stab someone multiple times in the groin by accident. Also, look at the height of the marks." He looked around the room, to where the blood trail started, and examined the carpet with his magnifying glass. "As I thought. Two people stood here." He returned to the body, revealing the chest again. "The first – our victim - I would guess to be five feet eleven. The second – we presume the killer – provided they marked his body at roughly mouth level, must therefore have been around four feet ten inches."

Lestrade groaned an obscenity, as he put the pieces together. At that moment, there were footsteps on the stairs, and Anderson entered the room. He took one look at Sherlock, and exploded with rage.

"What the _hell _do you think you're doing? You've tampered with the scene. There's _procedure_ for this sort of thing!"

Lestrade spoke up: "He's just deduced that our corpse was probably here for a sexual assignation whilst having previously removed all identifying features from his person and wallet, although keeping copious amounts of cash on him, with a person who was significantly less than five foot tall."

They watched Anderson process the information – the deduction, like so many of Sherlock's deductions, simple to follow once the groundwork was done. Chagrin and resentment warred with the disgust at the implied motive behind the crime.

"I see you've caught up. Well, I think I can leave you now. I doubt any other people are immediately at risk from the killer, so you can wait for Anderson and his drones to lumber on with the official forensics. When you get an ID on the dental records, check out his computer. You may make a few more arrests than you bargained for."

Anderson was in no fit state to gracefully shelve his earlier irritation. "What? You're just going to waltz off now, without looking at the rest of the scene? Well, that shows real commitment."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll manage _magnificently_. Just like in the Heggarty case." This mention of one of his most spectacular fails caused the forensics officer to flush angrily.

"What's the matter, Sherlock? None of this strike you as particularly important? Or a bit too close to home?"

"Shut up, Anderson", snapped Sherlock shortly. "Go and nurse your man-flu; it's making you irrational and stupid. Remarkable really, that it should be so noticeable."

He turned aside, and a concerned John noticed that he was trembling slightly. It was as he started out of the room that the furious Anderson, disastrously disinhibited from a combination of viraemia and excessive over the counter remedies, spoke the words that shook their world to the core.

-oOo-

_ I felt we needed a bit of Sherlock and John to balance this story, but we get back to the mysterious (or not so mysterious?) Will and Mike in the next chapter, and there are scenes you may find upsetting._


	3. Chapter 3: Punishment

**The Haywain**

**Chapter 3: Punishment**

Will closed his eyes tight, pretending to be asleep, refusing to allow the tears to leak out of the corner of his eyes. Not that it ever helped. He had even wet the bed a few weeks ago, hoping it would disgust his Uncle, make him leave him alone, but Uncle Avery had just made him clear it up, punished him harshly, then proceeded with the ordeal as normal. Will hadn't tried that particular deterrent again.

It was difficult to believe now that he had greeted his tall, jovial, clever relative with such delight. The first few days had been wonderful, but then Will had dropped a plate, after he had specifically been told to be careful, and received the first of his punishments. Certainly, he had expected a degree of chastising – he had had several hard wallops on the bottom from most of his relatives, and Uncle Avery in particular, before now. That was predictable, that was _normal._

His Uncle's reaction was certainly like nothing the child had ever experienced before. He was not used to much pain. He had broken his arm in a fall once, been punched in school a few times, normal childhood things. But this – his Uncle had removed his belt and thrashed him with it, but he had also _twisted _his limbs in a way that was even more painful, and it seemed to have gone on forever, and he had begged him to stop, crying hysterically, and Uncle Avery had only snarled that he would only stop when Will could show he was a man and not a clumsy snivelling coward, and there had been blood, and he at wondered at one point if his Uncle meant to kill him, and it had hurt more than anything he had possibly imagined could hurt, and he had been so _frightened_…. at last, he had been released, and his Uncle had forced his head back by pulling on his chair, forcing Will to look into his face.

His expression had made the boy want to be sick. Usually, when grown ups had punished him, they had looked angry, but a bit regretful, a bit ashamed of themselves. He was an observant child, and such things were very obvious to him. Uncle Avery wore a look of triumph, of excitement that he had bested and terrified a nine year old child, and Will knew, instinctively, that theat was a _wrong_ reaction, but had no idea what to do about it.

"Now go upstairs and clean yourself up, William. Wash your face, you look a disgrace. And don't think about blubbing about this in school if you have any self respect – I will hear about it if you do, and I'll be most unimpressed. Remember that you need to learn discipline. Your brother and I were in agreement upon that fact.

Will had fled. It had been a clever speech, as it seeded doubt in his mind. He was sure beating a child like that could not be legal. He was sure Mike would never condone it. However, just enough doubt had been added that he was far too afraid to test that hypothesis.

He inspected himself in the bathroom mirror. Blotchy, puffy face. Bruised back, from what he could see as he craned to get a look, with some areas of broken skin. No bruising from that horrific limb-twisting though, despite it having hurt even more than the impact of the steel buckle. That in itself sent a chill through him, although he could not place it at first.

On the way to school the next day, Will had again contemplated telling somebody about what had happened, but rejected the idea. Even if they did think it was wrong, he shuddered to think about what might happen to him whilst they were deciding what to do. A boy in the class above him had been taken away from his parents; he had been beaten up several times apparently. The rumours about it had started long before the child was actually removed, though, and, remembering those terrible, non-marking wrenches to his arms and legs, he decided it was best to keep quiet. He would be very good, perhaps it wouldn't happen again.

It kept happening. No child can be perfect twenty four hours a day, and certainly not Will. He became jumpy. He lost weight. He was quiet and withdrawn, distracted from his schoolwork whereas previously he had excelled. His teachers began asking him kindly if he was sleeping properly. They assumed this was about his mother, who was barely getting any better at all, despite the special electric treatment she was receiving.

Life continued like this for some time. The summer holidays were awful. He was punished more than ever, as he was around the house more for his transgressions to be observed. Mike didn't come home, as he was sitting entrance exams, planning on going to university a year early. This only reinforced Will's worry that his trusted older brother was complicit in his treatment.

He went back to school with a sense of relief, but it was misplaced. He had a new teacher, who appeared to believe his distraction was brought on by laziness, not constant, grinding anxiety. He called Uncle Avery to school.

Everyone took to his Uncle. He was charming, caring, intelligent, funny. He hand his arm around Will's shoulders as he spoke to Mr Golding, defending his nephew with just the right degree of concern.

"He's been through a bit of a tough time, Mr Golding, but don't worry, I understand he needs to pull his socks up a bit. He can't stay on half cylinders for ever. That's right, isn't it, kiddo?" He gave a playful punch to his nephew's arm.

He saved the punishment for home. Will had not been able to stop himself trembling and crying the whole way there, and it was a marvel his legs held out. His fear had been justified.

However hard he tried, he could not concentrate on his schoolwork, and his Uncle continued to hear of it. He now no longer had to wait for excuses to dole out his punishments.

He thought his life had already become about as terrible as he could imagine. Things could always get worse.

-oOo-

_Sorry, I know this is hard reading. More coming soon. Please read and review._


	4. Chapter 4: Spoken in Anger

**Chapter 4**

**Spoken in Anger**

Anderson's lips were pulled back from his teeth in a near snarl, and he was visibly trembling. Most of the officers Sherlock worked with regularly had adjusted their viewpoints of the abrupt consulting detective towards grudging respect at worst, to adoration at the high end of the scale. The majority clustered in the "liked, admired and were massively exasperated by" category, but Anderson was the exception. He had, admittedly, almost joined the majority at one point, but after a series of unfortunate events he had begun to dislike his arrogant colleague again, even more so since Sherlock and Sally had had a not-so-secret spur of the moment encounter which she had later told Anderson, in a fit of drunken acrimony, was better than anything she had experienced in their two year on and off liaison.

Anderson was not a bad man, although he could be a weak one. He had also, four years ago, worked on Operation Sealyham, one of the biggest ever child abuse investigations, and had found the work so upsetting - especially that one of the victims had looked hauntingly like his own son - that he had had three months off sick with stress afterwards. He was usually aware that he reacted badly to these cases, and kept a firm brake on his emotions, but today, he was not far removed from delirious. His emotions were running high, and he had information that he had, with commendable professionality, kept to himself for four years. Information that he had acquired during background reading into Operation Sealyham. Information that could seriously damage the reputation of Sherlock Bloody Holmes.

He _almost_ controlled himself and bit back the words. That was before Sherlock verbally lashed out at him with all the old vile insolence he had habitually used before John and a little maturity had softened him. Anderson's control vanished, and he disclosed the terribly explosive information. He hated himself afterwards. He had known it was Sherlock's secret, but it was in the public domain for anyone who cared to look hard enough. He just hadn't realised just quite what it was he was about to reveal.

"Something I read in a file a while ago made me look at your family tree, _Sherlock_. Wasn't surprised that you're a spoilt only child, but _was_ surprised that you were named after your Uncle. Admired, in your family, was he? Is that why you can't be arsed with this case - you don't think it's any big deal? Or is it just upper class embarrassment?"

"Shut up, Mike!" snapped Lestrade, and everyone in the room except Anderson noticed the unusual furious urgency in his tone. Anderson only noticed that Sherlock was staring at him, strangely blankly, and it infuriated the ill police officer even further.

"What, didn't everyone know that this arrogant gobshite's Uncle and namesake was a vicious kiddie fiddler? 'Cos it's funny you never mentioned him or little Will, Sherlock - don't you know the full story?"

There was a stunned silence. Sherlock had gone very white. That was when Anderson got his first inkling that he may have done something terrible. Nervously, he glanced towards Lestrade, who was looking suddenly sick.

Sherlock spoke, his voice a low hiss.

"Oh, yes, Anderson. I know all about Will. Rather more than you do, it would appear."

-oOo-

_So, what _could _the connection be here? I expect many of you may have guessed it. Either way, I think we need to know a bit more about Will too. Read on to the next chapter to find out. However, please be warned, the next chapter is potentially VERY upsetting. I got upset writing it. Just so you know._

_I would really appreciate your reading and reviewing - thanks!_


	5. Chapter 5: Perfectly Natural

**Chapter 5**

**Perfectly Natural**

The first time his Uncle came to his room after a beating, Will hoped madly that he had finally come to apologise, and that things would get better. Indeed, his Uncle spoke his name in a soft voice from the doorway. His voice was caressing as he came and sat on the bed, and Will instinctively sat up and moved closer. Later, he rationalised this by reasoning that all young mammals needed physical comfort on an instinctive level, and he must have been responding to the recent lack of it.

Uncle Avery put an arm around him, and he snuggled closer. That's when the words were spoken that would rattle sickeningly around his illogically guilty psyche for months to come.

"Mm, Willing Will, eh? You naughty lad. Well, we'll forgive you this once. Let's see if Willing Will will willingly follow his will.". The man laughed at his own wit, and the small boy froze, a new instinct screaming danger to him, and suddenly he was trying frantically to pull away, but his Uncle wasn't letting him.

What followed made him feel sick, even faint, and desperately ashamed. Nothing had hurt, exactly, but it made him feel as if he had been smeared head to toe in dog dirt. His Uncle had _touched_ him, and told him to reciprocate; he had obeyed out of habit and sheer terror, but his Uncle had laughed, and called him Willing Will again.

This was the problem. Will felt sure these things must be illegal, but _he_ had done them too. He was not scared of going to prison - it would be wonderful compared to living with Uncle Avery - but what if they believed Uncle Avery, punished Will, then returned him to his Uncle? Furthermore, his very soul crawled with humiliation at the thought of anybody knowing what he had done.

He almost decided to write to Mike and beg for help. But something Avery had said during the ordeal came back to him:

"As I'm sure your brother knows very well, this sort of thing is very conducive towards a positive learning atmosphere."

What did he mean by this? Will was petrified of his Uncle finding out that he had been sneaking around behind his back, and what if Mike approved this sort of conduct?

He worried and agonised for four days over what to do, and lay awake at night dreading that his Uncle would come back in. When he did sleep, he was tormented by nightmares of the ordeal. One night he woke in fright and realised he had wet himself, and had to creep about, tears of shame running down his cheeks, and wash his sheets and mattress.

In the end, he decided doing nothing was unendurable, so he wrote a very normal sounding letter to his brother, asking him in a throwaway fashion if touching certain parts of one's body could help learning, as he had heard from someone that maybe Mike thought it did.

He waited anxiously for the next four days to waylay the postman, meeting him in the lane outside the house to secure his letter. Outside, away from the house, he tore it open with trembling fingers, and scanned the letter, his heart hammering in his chest, then sinking like a great stone as he read the reply.

"As for the touching certain body parts stuff, I assume someone has been saying I know all about it as I go to a boy's boarding school and am intelligent. Take no notice! You're coming up to puberty I expect, and you need to know that the kind of touching I assume you're referring to is a perfectly natural thing and nothing to be ashamed of - no matter where you're touching! It's actually unhealthy to bottle things up. If anyone teases you, just tell them it's none of their business. You might start getting funny dreams soon too, which can make a mess - don't worry, that's normal too. I can explain it in more detail if you want more information, but I don't want to embarrass you."

He felt stunned. Defeated. Forsaken. He had _feared_ that Mike would side with Uncle Avery, but he had not until now _believed_ it. He was utterly alone.

-oOo-

_Oh dear. The power of misunderstanding._

_Also, sorry, I know this is seriously nasty subject matter. It may sound awfully pretentious, but I suppose it's an important fact to know that abused kids often do feel horribly isolated, and that all that may be needed is someone to communicate with them._

_On a lighter note, I continue to really look forward to your reviews! Please do spur me on with them._


	6. Chapter 6: Day Twenty Five

**Chapter 6**

**Day Twenty Five**

For days after receiving Mike's letter (which he tore up and hid in a bin a mile from his house), Will existed in a state of dazed panic, where he went through his normal routine automatically, but his mind was not really operating on its normal rational level. By seven days, the ordeal had not been repeated, and he was beginning to hope it was an isolated event. His Uncle had been perfectly pleasant to him since it had happened, and he had not received any more punishments.

By eleven days, he was even wondering if the ordeal had done some good. His perpetual anxiety had eased a little, and Mr Golding praised him enthusiastically for his science project. Uncle Avery heard about it, and read through the project himself. He was highly complimentary, clapping his nephew warmly on his shoulder, and even bought Will a handsome penknife as a reward.

As his jangling nerves slowly settled, Will began to speak to the other children in school again. He had never exactly been popular, as he found many of the other children slow and boring, and they were never sure how to deal with his adult intelligence, but he had had some friends, and once, seemingly long ago, he had enjoyed playing games with them that were as noisy and mindless as any other child would enjoy. They had been a little sulky when he stopped speaking to them, and had even, looking slightly guilty, joined in some of the teasing, but in the changeable way of children, they fell back into friendship with him as quickly as they had fallen out of it.

By day twenty-two, he was playing outside with them again.

On day twenty-five, he ran into the house to escape the rain after playing with his friends, and trod mud into the hallway.

His Uncle bellowed his name, and Will froze, then shot back into action.

"Sorry, Uncle, sorry - I'll get a cloth, I'll clear it up!"

He tried frantically to kick his shoes off and run into the kitchen, but he was grabbed in a tight hold. He started to shake.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, BOY! DON'T RUN IN THE HOUSE, IN SOCKS ON TOP OF EVERYTHING!"

There was the soft clink of metal as Avery undid his belt. Will tried not to do all the things that would enrage him further; cry, fall to the ground, cringe, look defiant, look angry, look indifferent... the trouble was, there were so many things he wasn't supposed to do, he never seemed able to find the right behaviour. It hardly mattered; he always ended up crying eventually, earning still more contempt.

By the time he was dismissed today, his whole face felt swollen and his throat hurt from crying. He staggered to the bathroom as normal, where he was quietly sick, then he washed his red puffy face, drank a glass of water, cleaned and dressed the cuts that were bleeding, craning around in the mirror to ensure he had not missed any - he would not repeat his previous mistake when he had earned another punishment for getting blood on his t-shirt - and headed downstairs for dinner.

All through dinner, he felt Uncle Avery's eyes boring into him. Dutifully, he watched his table manners, and tried to speak civilly, but he could hardly swallow his food.

At the bottom of the stairs on his way to bed, Will's legs inexplicably seized up. They just would not move. He must have stood there for a full five minutes, before a noise in the corridor freed him again.

As he got into bed, he was shaking, and could barely feel his hands and feet. He lay frozen under his duvet, his ears straining for the sound of feet on the stairs, dreading it.

He kept imagining he could hear his Uncle's step, and jumping fearfully. Then, one of the imagined footfalls became real, and he lay quaking, feeling as if the monster under the bed had just emerged and paralysed him.

The footsteps stopped outside his doorway, and he heard his Uncle's voice, sounding kind, and softly amused.

"Hello, Willing Will."

-oOo-

_I think I loathe Uncle Avery more than any character I've ever invented. Please review, in the hope I'll give him his comeuppance more quickly._


	7. Chapter 7: The Allotment

**Chapter 7**

**The Allotment**

Will was not sure how much more he could endure. How could anyone believe this sort of behaviour to be natural? After the second occasion, again his explosive behaviour seemed to have temporarily mellowed Uncle Avery, but six days later, there was another incident, and, with a leaden heart, Will confirmed his own deductions that a pattern was now set - the awful incursions into his room occurred after a savage eruption of temper.

He had endured it twelve times now; with a frequency of once every week or two, and he hated it utterly. He always closed his eyes throughout, but the memories were no les indelible for it. The helplessness, the sensations, the smells. Even the sounds; the disgusting grunting, and an odd clicking noise that he had not been able to place, but that struck him as sinister, like some hungry beast scraping its claws together.

The very unpredictability of it was awful too. Sometimes, his Uncle would seem like his old self; kindly, jolly, affectionate. He made a real fuss of Will over Christmas and took him abseiling for his birthday. But all this only added to the confusion and his trepidation that the sudden mood changes would occur. The beating was terrible enough, but that which usually followed it... he shuddered, and his mind resumed its whirring downward spiral, where he could see no end to any of this. His Mum was hardly any better, and Mike seemed to have given up coming home - he had been on work experience over the Christmas holidays. Will was entirely at Uncle Avery's mercy.

The morning after the latest occasion was a Saturday. Will sat in hollow silence at the breakfast table, trying not to look sullen.

"I'm off to the allotment today", announced Avery suddenly. "I expect you to behave whilst I'm gone."

He quite frequently visited the allotment, but today, something struck Will. There was a strange, guarded expression on the man's face, which he always wore when he disappeared off for his "spot of gardening". Will was never sure why he needed a allotment when there were such large gardens in their house, but he had been forbidden to go, and knew better to ask.

He had never really given much thought to his Uncle looking shifty in this way before, but today he saw the link. He wore the same expression every time after he came into his nephew's bedroom.

Why was this link so important? Will couldn't really explain it; but he knew it was. He watched his Uncle walk out of the door, and in that moment, decided to follow him. The risk was appalling, but suddenly, he felt energised in a way he hadn't since the beatings had started. Here was a piece of defiance that he instinctively felt would get back at his Uncle.

He had never followed anyone before. It was difficult, but he was careful, and ensured he never left himself exposed. Uncle Avery obviously suspected nothing; he did not look around.

The strange procession continued for forty eight minutes. Will liked to keep an exact check on time; it gave him a feeling of control. He had estimated the distance to be three miles and around nine hundred and sixty yards.

At first, he was very disappointed to see his quarry really was walking onto a perfectly ordinary looking allotment, marked "Plot 83", and entering the small shed at one end of it. Then his sharp little brain noticed something strange: the allotment held a perfectly normal selection of winter vegetables, but did not look particularly tidy. There were several weeds of varying ages here and there. Will knew next to nothing of practical gardening, but he did know that his Uncle would often spend a long time here, and the plot had the look of not having had enough time spent on it to account for this.

Quietly, he chose a corner behind a thick shrub, and settled down to watch the shed. His Uncle did not come out for a long time.

After an hour, Will felt cold and uncomfortable. Cautiously, he rose to his feet, and started to slip away when a thought occurred to him. A concrete and corrugated iron structure sat at the end of the plots, its sign reading "Readington End Allotments: Office". He sauntered back to it, and strolled inside. The room housed a small shop selling gardening paraphernalia, and a desk with a bored looking man sitting behind it.

"Excuse me please", said Will to the man, with a polite smile. "My Grandad wanted to know who owns plot number 83. He wanted to know what breed his cabbages are."

The man smiled back at him, completely unsuspicious.

"Well, I can certainly check for you... just let me get the book. Plot 83, plot 83... here we are. It's a Mr David Brown. Afraid I can't give addresses out without permission, but I can give him a message if you like?"

Will had been more than capable of reading upside down to see the address given. The man didn't bother to shield it from a child.

"Is that David Brown from Cherry Tree Lane?"

"Well, yes."

"That's OK then! My Grandad knows him. Small world, isn't it?"

The man behind the desk smiled and agreed, obviously amused at this quaint little boy talking like an old man. Will smiled back, thanked the man, and left.

His mind was whirring again as he walked home. What on earth was Uncle Avery doing? Why had he left a false name and address at the allotment? And why did he feel so profoundly uneasy about what might be in that shed?

There was no opportunity for the next few days to investigate further, giving Will time to brood. Now, investigating the shed seemed like an act of self preservation. Will was convinced by his Uncle's aura of secrecy that something significant was going on in there, and, until he knew it did not relate to him, he could not feel safe.

-oOo-

_The contents of the shed will be revealed in the next chapter... please read and review._


	8. Chapter 8: The Shed

**Chapter 8**

**The Shed**

Will's opportunity to discover the secrets of the shed came when his Uncle announced he was going to London to see his solicitor for the day, and that Will was to behave himself whilst he was gone. He did not see fit to provide a baby sitter for his ten year old nephew, which suited Will down to the ground.

He waited a good half hour, to ensure his Uncle had not forgotten anything, then set off for the allotment. It was a cold day, and he buried his hands in his pockets and hunched his head as he walked along.

His fingers closed around his mother's hair pins as he waked. Will had been fascinated by locks for years, and had been given a book for his seventh birthday, ironically enough by Uncle Avery, that taught him, amongst other things, how to pick them. He had discovered a natural talent for it.

When he arrived at the allotments, he was struck by the frightening thought that his Uncle might have been lying about going to London, and would be sitting in his shed instead. He told himself this was illogical - his Uncle had told him when he was going to the allotments in the past. However, he still approached very cautiously. He tried to peep in through the window, but there was a curtain across it. He looked around him warily - the allotments were deserted. He retreated to hide behind a row of nearby current bushes, picked up a rock, and hurled it at the shed. No angry man came barrelling out to shout.

Again, he approached the shed. Hardly daring to breath, he took out his home made lock picks, and picked up the heavy padlock. He raked the picks recklessly, prioritising speed over finesse, and felt the mechanism release on his first attempt. He felt a glow of pride, one of the first flutters of self-confidence he'd had for a long time.

Knees trembling, he pushed open the door.

There was no one inside.

There was a small locked filing cabinet with two drawers, a desk, an armchair, a box of tissues, and a washing line with pegs on it. A single, red light bulb hung from the ceiling.

Closing the door behind him, Will turned to the cabinet with his makeshift picks. This time, he took his time, not wanting to leave tell-tale scratches or damage the locks. After five minutes, the first drawer opened. Inside were sheafs of shiny paper, several plastic trays and several bottles of chemicals that the budding young chemist recognised as photographic developing fluid. The shed was a dark room.

Will carefully relocked the first drawer, and set to work on the second. Inside, were fourteen plain, black books. Photograph albums.

Curiously, he picked up the first album and opened it. And dropped it. And collapsed onto the arm chair, trembling, suddenly dizzy, tears pricking his eyes. After a moment, he forced himself to pick up the album again and to look through it. His shaking intensified, and his mind was an echoing chamber of terror.

The pictures were of children about his own age, some even younger, and they were pictured doing very similar things to the ordeal Uncle Avery now frequently put him through... but worse. He had not thought the night time torture could get any worse, but what had terrified him about the first picture he had looked at was the thought that his Uncle might want to do _that_ to him. Surely it couldn't be real? It must be excruciatingly painful.

Horrified, he continued to look through the photographs, goosebumps standing up all over his skin as the pictures got even worse. Some reminded him of images he had seen in the chamber of horrors at London Dungeon when he was eight.

He picked up an album near the back of the drawer, and gingerly opened it. Then, he burst into panicked tears. The photographs were of him. His mind, sluggish with fear, had not made the obvious connection between the ominous clicking sounds in the bedroom during his ordeals, and the contents of this shed, until now. The thought that Uncle Avery might intend some of the revolting practices those other poor children were going through smashed unavoidably into his mind with the force of a demolition ball. The album had many empty pages towards the end, and Avery had already stuck in the little detachable triangles of cardboard that would hold the photographs in place.

He cried for a long time. He had no idea what to do. Then he stopped. He neatly put back the albums, and relocked the drawer. He checked that the shed was as he had left it, stepped outside, and closed the padlock.

As he walked home, he thought, and came to a decision.

He would not stand for any more of this than he had to.

He would run away. No one would know where he had gone, or even that he was going. And he would not come back.

-oOo-

_There are some vile people in the world. Looks like they're clustering here. Sorry._


	9. Chapter 9: Centre Stage

**Chapter 9**

**Centre Stage**

Sometimes, shame breeds bravado, and Anderson was not quite ready to back down.

"Oh, I might know more than you think. I know Will was your cousin, the same age as you, and that he was too frightened to speak to any member of your fucking family while your charming Uncle did unspeakable things to him; the kind of things most people can't even imagine a child having to go through. I know it got too much for him and he ran away..."

Lestrade, seeming to have just recovered from a temporary paralysis, suddenly shouted;

"Will you SHUT UP, Anderson! Trust me on this, you really don't know what you're talking about!"

"Leave it, Lestrade", whispered Sherlock, his voice still full of venom. "He has nothing to say now that can't be found with a bit of detailed Googling, so shall we let him go on enlightening us about "_Will_", my "_cousin_"? Come on, Anderson, now's your moment - you have everyone's attention. God knows, it happens seldom enough, you may as well take advantage."

Lestrade slumped, and ran his hands over his face. Anderson almost backed down then, but the hostile sarcasm directed at him spurred him on, and prevented him predicting the implications of Sherlock's invisible yet obvious quotation marks.

"I know what happened after he ran away too."

-oOo-

_Sounds worrying. How could Anderson know what had happened to Will? Please read and review._


	10. Chapter 10: Run Rabbit, Run

_**There is particularly difficult content in this chapter. Please be warned.**_

**Chapter 10**

**Run Rabbit, Run**

Will planned his escape meticulously, and entirely within the privacy of his own mind. His Uncle would never know what he was contemplating, until it was too late to stop him.

Like many rebellious small boys, Will had considered running away before. The difference was, Will had examined his plans with the critical eye of an intelligent adult, not the fanciful laissez faire of a child. Not for him poorly thought out short term bolt where he ran out of food, or had to give up or freeze to death: when he left, he would have to find a way to sustain himself.

He was under no illusions that he would somehow find work, or earn a living through pick-pocketing. He had also seen enough news items about missing children to deduce that he would become fairly high profile quite quickly. He was an attractive child, small and vulnerable, and middle-to-upper class. Sad though it was, Will understood, with the cynicism that did not really belong with his age, that these attributes sold newspapers. Nice pretty little children going missing from picturesque homes in sleepy English villages would look better on a front page or studio background than ugly fat kids from broken homes in tower blocks. This was unfortunate, as he did not want some well meaning member of the public spotting him and handing him over to the police.

He would have to disappear entirely. He would have to find somewhere he could hide. Somewhere far from his home, where locals would not be so on the alert. Being the age he was, any time he walked down a street alone might attract attention; people would expect him to be with parents, or in a group. Therefore, for most of the time, he could not be seen at all.

He weighed up rural versus urban, and decided to go with rural. On the down side was that the local populace would be more likely to notice a stray child in their midst - but as Will did not intend to be seen at all, this did not weigh too heavily with him. In the countryside, there would be deserted hiding places that no violent mugger or virtuous nosey parker would stumble onto.

He would need access to food. He was under no illusions that he could live by woodcraft and the like - he could differentiate poisonous from edible fungus, but he had no desire to make that his staple diet. Rather, he would need a supermarket. He had seen the amount of perfectly edible food his local store threw away, and was confident he could get enough to eat by midnight scavenging.

He would need shelter. There was a very serviceable one man tent in the attic, which he could certainly carry, and which Uncle Avery was probably entirely unaware of. He had two good sleeping bags. It was cold enough that he wouldn't be noticed wearing multiple layers. He would take his salopets along, and pinch Mike's old ones for when he grew out of his own. Will intended to be gone for a long time.

Living in secret in a rural idyll appealed to some fractured, hurt part of his psyche. There was a painting of The Hay Wain in his bedroom, and he began pleasurably to insert himself in old fashioned clothing, behind many of the hiding places the picture had to offer. The countryside was no less a brutal place than the town to him, but he intended to be out of sight of it completely. The thought of it still presenting it's sickly, smiling face to the world, never revealing its damaged little fugitive, wrenched a grim smile from him - his first in days.

He did his research. Whilst sitting in the library with his homework open in case of interruption, he was poring over Ordinance Survey maps, encyclopaedias and travel guides. He produced his short list, and found train timetables to get him close. When he had his shortlist, he looked in the Yellow Pages for phone numbers of the major supermarket chains, and he used his pocket money to call them from the village phone box, saying he was doing a school project, asking them whether they had stores in his chosen locations, and whether they were situated out of town.

They were unfailingly helpful. Before long, Will had seven possible destinations in mind. He decided upon North Wales. He had never been there, it looked beautiful, and there would be no reason on earth anyone would assume he had gone there.

Will planned the trains he would take; a circuitous route, to deter anyone who might be tempted to track him, and the first train of the day. This would involve leaving the house to walk to the station after his bedtime, so he would have twelve hours before anyone realised he was gone.

He then made the most difficult decision of all: he would have to allow his Uncle to come to his room one last time - it would not do for his absence to be discovered too early, and the man never came two nights running.

The wait was excruciating. Will always dreaded the foul incursions, yet now he must hope it would occur soon - the sooner it did, the sooner he could escape.

What added teeth to this torture was that Uncle Avery was in a mellow phase. Will had not been beaten for fifteen days, and it was almost like having his old, loved relation back. The natural apprehension of his projected escape grew, as he began to question whether leaving was more frightening than staying in these comfortable circumstances. However, he was also haunted by the sickening knowledge that prior occasions when his Uncle had gone easy on him for longer periods had been followed by a particularly vicious backlash, as if in compensation. Each day, the indecision ate at his insides, and it took every ounce of resolution he possessed not to encourage concerned questions from his teachers and the village busybodies. Each night, he teetered on the brink of taking his chance and running, then every morning, he cursed himself for wasting another opportunity.

The explosion, when it came, was predictably appalling, and the fact that he had expected it did nothing to lessen Will's terror. His Uncle savagely punished him for knocking over a jar of honey, then dragged the injured, trembling child to his bedroom and flung him inside. Will sobbed quietly as he waited. His Uncle had been excited by exercising his power, and he was bound to turn up after this punishment.

The bedroom door opened, and Will felt the familiar potent nausea, disgust and horror. It was made slightly less unbearable by the knowledge that he would be catching his train the next morning, but nothing could dispel that horror completely. He gritted his teeth, and got ready to endure.

He realised, six minutes in, that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. He had been prepared for the usual, disgusting physical contact, but not for what his Uncle was trying to do to him now. As he remembered the photographs and realised what was about to happen to him, he started to frantically struggle, something he had not done for a long time. This only seemed to inflame his Uncle further.

It was a tearstained, sick at heart boy in tremendous pain who somehow managed to uncurl himself from his bed soon afterwards. A weaker child would probably have despaired and given up, but Will, despite his injuries, was determined to end this now. He rose from his bed, and on shaking legs, he was soon gathering his heavy rucksack from its hiding place in the attic, and creeping down the stairs to the front door. He paused to look round his home as he left, feeling as he were standing on the keel of a boat as it drifted away from the shore that had been his past life. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, the images of his Mum, and Mike, played across the insides of his eyelids, waving, and fading further and further into the distance.

He felt an unexpected calm; he had smelt alcohol on his Uncle's breath, and knew he would sleep heavily. He let the feeling wash over him for a few seconds, then turned and closed the door behind him.

-oOo-

_I am very, very glad to get that chapter out of the way. I do hope nobody was too upset by it. Very gritty, I know. For God's sake, if anyone has been affected by something like this, tell somebody about it; someone in a position of responsibility, not necessarily directly connected with you. They will listen, and they will act to protect you._

_ We now need to find out what happens to Will after he leaves, and what Sherlock knows about it. Please read and review: it spurs me on to write quicker._


	11. Chapter 11: Family Traditions

**Chapter 11: **

**Family Traditions**

Sherlock had gone quiet at Anderson's words. Indeed, the silence in the room was so intense it could have been cut with a knife. Suddenly, Sherlock sighed dramatically, and began speaking in, to what anyone who didn't know him well, would have sounded like his normal voice when berating somebody for their own stupidity. John, however, knew his friend very well, and knew that this was very far from normal. He felt he was supposed to be preventing a terrible accident, but he could not quite see it coming.

"Thank you, Anderson. You obviously have some of the basics right, but I think you may have missed the most basic point of all." He paused, waiting for some response, but everyone seemed frozen in place. _So slow, the lot of them_.

"I presume you found the information about Sherlock Avery Holmes in the police reports when you were doing background reading for Operation Sealyham? Yes, I thought as much", he continued, his eyes glinting dangerously as Anderson nodded. "And, no doubt struck by the unlikely coincidence of there being two Sherlock Holmes's with no connection to each other, you looked up..." he fiddled with his phone for a moment, then held it out for everyone to see - "... this Holmes family tree on Ancestry?"

"Yes. Am I supposed to impressed?" snarled Anderson.

"No. That much is obvious. As is the fact that you have seen the family tree my Aunt Anneli drew - Ancestry will bring it up for you automatically if someone else has already researched what you seem to be researching. Now, what is _slightly_ less obvious, but which still shouldn't be outside the capabilities of anyone possessed of a grain of logic, is spotting that she only used first names and surnames. You must have noticed all the police reports referred to Avery Holmes, mustn't you? Nobody called him Sherlock. Using the second name is a common tradition in my family - as is the name Sherlock - after all, we are rather posh."

Now Anderson was suddenly sure he could see where this was going, and he wanted to stop it, wanted to unsay his words, wanted to be sick and crawl home to rest in bed with the blanket over his head. Worse still, he could tell everyone else knew, but no-one knew what to say. Sherlock ploughed on relentlessly.

"For instance, my cousin Tom, Anneli's son, the one who was exactly the same age as me; his first name was Sherlock, but no-one ever called him that. See him here, at the bottom of the tree; the one you assumed was me, as I absolutely fit your profile of the spoilt only child. Wrong, as usual. Look again. Can you find me now? I'll give you a clue; _I go by what used to be my second name too_."

Sherlock was shaking as he spat out his words, his face waxy, and he thrust the phone at Anderson in a trembling hand. He was suddenly seized with a coughing fit, and he turned, and stumbled out of the room. There was a horrified silence, then John and Lestrade ran after him, leaving a stricken Anderson staring at the only other name on the family tree who could possibly be the arrogant consulting detective.

-oOo-

_This all only goes to show you really should just stay in bed if you're ill, to avoid doing something totally stupid._

_On to chapter 12 now - two chapters at once, as a special treat for you (although I'd still appreciate it if kind people could review them separately, of course - hint, hint!)_


	12. Chapter 12: All Change

**Chapter 12**

**All Change**

Will had, for several years now, realised that he seemed to see things that other people didn't. He observed how people behaved in groups, how they interacted. He could often deduce things about what they did in their free time or for a living by observing tiny little signs about them. At first, he hadn't really understood how he did it, but as he grew older, he became better at identifying the individual points he was observing.

Had he applied his talents to enable himself to interact with other people, he would have been immensely popular. However, he was very shy as a small child, and later, often couldn't really be bothered; his abilities became rather more likely to unsettle people than impress them.

As Will made his escape, those talents became extremely useful to allow him to pass unnoticed. He tagged himself onto a family group as he bought his train ticket, holding himself in just such a way that suggested he had been allowed to pay for it himself because he was grown up. He sauntered alongside a teenage Goth and another family group as he got on the train. He ensured the mother saw him glower at the Goth in the sullen way he glowered at his older brother. He then sat just behind her family, keeping the sullen look on his face. She must have thought he was defying his equally sulky older brother. To the ticket collector, he merged with the family in front of him.

Had a small boy appeared on his own at five thirty in the morning, he would have been stopped immediately. As it was, he was just another child on a holiday trip.

Will also knew that people were very superficial when they looked at identifying features. For this reason, he had charged and abstracted his father's old electric razor and his mother's brown eye pencil, foundation and bronzing powder. By torchlight in a field two miles from his house, he had clicked the clipper attachment onto the razor and given himself a grade four haircut all over, carefully gathering the hair in an old towel he had draped around his shoulders, which he then disposed of in a nearby wheelie bin.

In a toilet cubicle at the station, using a small mirror, he coated his face with the foundation and then the bronzing powder - his Mum was several skin tones darker than him - and drew on a mass of freckles with the eye pencil.

He had also chosen families who his appearance fitted in with. He knew his own family were far too snobbish to allow him to appear with a crew cut; his target families looked a good deal less posh than he normally was.

Will applied similar techniques when he arrived in Birmingham and bought a ticket for Crewe, and when, at Crewe, he changed for Wrexham. As it was now school hours, he carried two clip boards, and brought two tickets, to look as if he and a friend were on a school survey.

He took a bus next, looking around him as the industrial town gave way to multicoloured, tall rolling hills. He felt a little easing of the constriction in his chest.

When he climbed off the bus, he found an unobtrusive corner to check his map. He was headed for the lonely countryside he had read about in rambling books in the library. He was careful to avoid getting stuck in open stretches where people might see him, question him, remember him; instead he clung to hedgerows and trees.

Will took his time in choosing his new home. It took him three days; during which time he slept in outbuildings in the more lonely farms, hidden behind implements, and sneaking out just before daybreak, living off the supplies he had brought with him. It was deeply wearying, however, to be constantly on the alert during the day. Although he found spots that looked to be seldom disturbed, almost everywhere bore marks of being occasionally disturbed - not good enough.

Eventually, he struck gold. He was high up in the hills, surrounded by sweeping, truly beautiful countryside; too distant from the villages to be of any interest to gangs of den-building local children, or teenagers in search of somewhere to drink beer and smoke cigarettes, as they seemed to like doing. Yet he could still reach the nearest small town, with its outlying supermarket, without too much difficulty.

The farm was one of the most ill-kept he had seen in this area; a scabacious blot on the rolling landscape, rusting farm implements and neglected looking animals sprawling across barren-looking land - scrubby, thin wiry grass, with mud and flinty rocks erupting through like some pustular disease. It was situated in the midst of scrubby, bramble infested woodland.

The tangle of thorns and bracken around the old storage shed indicated very clearly that no-one had been in here in years.

The padlock was rusted shut, but fifteen minutes of work with his penknife and the mechanism groaned around again.

Inside, it was a little damp and musty, but the trees had saved the shed from the worst of the elements. A few pieces of farm debris were scattered across the floor, illuminated by the holes in the eaves, but there was nothing of value stored here - the shed had obviously been superseded by the larger, ramshackle corrugated iron buildings further down the hill.

It was utterly desolate.

It was perfect.

He spent the next hour filling in the gaps in the wall and ceiling with bracken and the newspaper he had brought with him, knowing it was good for insulation. Wetted, the paper made an effective mortar. When no light shone through, he was happy - he could use his wind up torch without fear of the light attracting attention.

Then, he pitched his tent inside the shed, a layer of newspaper between the groundsheet and the mud floor. His sleeping roll and sleeping bag, his spare clothes, his toilet paper, his towel, his penknife, his piggy-bank savings and his torch went into the tent. He had also allowed himself some luxury items; to prevent himself going mad in his self-imposed exile. His books, his writing paper, his pencils and pencil sharpener, his violin and Aramis, the practically bald stuffed dog he had hidden from his Uncle Avery and been unable to bring himself to leave behind, despite his embarrassment at himself, also went inside the tent. He made a makeshift table from the planks, balanced upon four rocks, and placed his food supplies, his rucksack, his toothbrush and toothpaste, the razor and his mother's make up, his flask and the tiny one-ring oil burning camping stove and pan upon it.

He stood by the door and surveyed his handiwork, and his ugly new surroundings. It was home for the conceivable future.

It would need a name.

He smiled at the grimly ironic choice that sprung to mind. He stepped back into the shed, glad that he was able to lock it behind him with his own padlock. He sat crosslegged on the sleeping mat, rather self-consciously picking up Aramis and tucking his chin on top of the well-worn fur. He then collected up his writing paper and a 2B pencil, folded the paper and wrote "The Hay Wain" in bold print upon it. He drew a border of the festering old farmyard around it, in parody of a rose trellis, then fixed it to the top tent pole like a flag.

He opened a tin of baked beans and ate half of them, cold. He drunk some water from his flask, and cleaned his teeth. He emptied his bladder a short distance from his new home, then locked himself in again and collapsed, exhausted, onto his sleeping mat, huddling as far into the sleeping bag as possible, holding Aramis tightly to him, trying to get comfortable, to find a soft spot on the towel wrapped in a pillow case under his head.

It was pitch black in the tent, and very quiet; only the rustling of the trees and the occasional call of some night animal going about its business relieving the emptiness pressing against him.

In this sensory near-vacuum, thoughts of Uncle Avery began to push their way in. He thought of footsteps upon the stairs, and began to shiver, despite knowing there was no possible way of the man knowing where he was. His recent injuries began to hurt again.

He could virtually _hear_ the detested voice, and he whimpered, trying to force the memories away.

_Hello, Willing Will_.

Suddenly, he was unbearably angry, and he sat upright in bed, tasting bile, his heart hammering in impotent fury. He was seized by the need to _do_ something, to delete the images, sounds, sensations that plagued him. He drew his knees tightly to his chest, hands clamped over his ears, wet eyes burning into the darkness.

_Hello, Willing Will._

"_Don't call me that!_" he shouted, raging at the unjust lie.

Then, he knew what he would do. In a way, it was a pointless gesture, as no-one was going to see him to call him by his name - but _he_ would know.

He would no longer be Will. Years ago, he had been known by his middle name anyway, until he announced imperiously, aged six, that he wanted to be called something more _normal_. Well, he had tried that, much good it had done him. Now, he would go back to the ridiculous family name, and it would not matter, because there would be no-one to laugh at it. When he heard his Uncle's voice in the night, it would no longer matter, because Will would no longer exist.

_Hello, Willing Will_.

"There is no Willing Will", he growled, aloud, to the shadows. "My name is Sherlock Holmes".

-oOo-

_Well, a lot of you had guessed who Will was - well done. But how does a ten year old survive these conditions - and what did Anderson mean when he said he knew what happened after Will ran away?_

_Please do read and review! It does bring me joy, which I need to keep writing this bleak stuff. Thanks so much to those of you who already have - cyberstars to you all._


	13. Chapter 13: Needing Air

**Chapter 13: **

**Needing air**

Sherlock got as far as the outside of the house, barging an astonished Sally out of the path of his blind stumble towards _air, space, no people, _before Lestrade and John caught up with him. He then felt his knees starting to buckle as the infernal cough seized him again, and his lungs seemed to clamp closed like out-of-water gills. He sank down on the low wall, knowing he would fall if he didn't, and still not entirely sure he could prevent it.

John was there, rubbing the heel of his hand in firm circles around Sherlock's back, and quietly, calmly, commanding him to "breath, slowly now, with me".

Lestrade paused only to mutter to Sally, following the bizarre procession outside;

"Tell someone to bring my car round, then go and find Mike; stop him drowning himself in the bath or whatever. I'm driving Sherlock home, you're in charge 'til I get back". If Sally found these instructions odd, she didn't comment on it, simply obeyed with no more than a concerned glance towards the little tableau of John and Sherlock, and Lestrade walking towards them with his grey coat blowing behind him in the raw wind.

John continued to exude competence and control while Sherlock gasped and wheezed for breath, but, when the wrenching paroxysm was over, the consulting detective's dark curly head just drooped downwards, his shoulders slumped, his posture one of abject defeat, and the doctor, one hand still on the heaving back, began to look just the tiniest bit lost. There was nothing overt about it, but Lestrade was finely tuned to the small nuances of people in a way Sherlock was towards crime scenes. He had no doubt John would adjust quickly enough following this shock, but he had the distinct feeling the doctor's very broad shoulders would soon be needed - no harm in easing the burden in the meantime. He caught the glance the doctor threw at him, and strode to the newly arrived car, opened the back door, then crossed to Sherlock and gently but firmly eased him to his feet.

"Come on, Sherlock. It'll work out OK. Let's get you back to Baker Street, I'll drive you." He wrapped supporting arms around the thin frame as he spoke, and his voice took on a soft, soothing quality that John had not heard before.

Sherlock spoke. His voice was also soft and held an unfamiliar note, but otherwise he sounded very different to Lestrade.

"The déja-vu is fitting, considering the context, eh Lestrade?"

John thought he sounded bitter. And vulnerable.

-oOo-

_Sorry to have kept you all waiting so long, for this and my other stories. Unfortunately my work rota is rotten for the next 6 months, so updates may be a little few and far between, but they will all keep going eventually, I promise! And just for being so good and patient, have another chapter straight away!_

_ Please do read and review – it makes me more inclined to write rather than flop and gaze at the telly when I have a little free time! Thanks for all your lovely reviews already._


	14. Chapter 14: Missing Persons

**Chapter 14**

**Missing Persons**

Mycroft Holmes let himself in by the back door of his family home, and was met with the sight of his Uncle Avery sitting chewing a thumbnail at the kitchen table. He appeared deeply distracted, taking a second or two before he acknowledged his elder nephew's presence. When he did turn around, Mycroft thought he looked dreadful, with signs of agitation writ large over his usually impassive countenance. _Hair, usually immaculate, standing on end. Dark circles under his eyes, three shaving cuts to match the tremor in his hands. Troubled. He blames himself. Illogical, but natural._

"Mike". His Uncle's voice was gritty as he rose to his feet to pull his nephew into a hug. Mycroft was trembling as he leaned his head onto Avery's shoulder, indulging in a moment of weakness before stepping back and straightening his spine; forcing his face back to neutrality.

"Any news?"

Avery shook his head.

"The police are looking for him. They've questioned me; they'll want to question you too. Oh, damn it, Mike, where can he have got to? The police want to release pictures of him to the press."

Both winced. The missing children pictured in the news rarely had a happy ending to their story. Images of that poor little toddler who'd recently been murdered flashed into Mycroft's mind - then the memory of the grainy CCTV footage of his abduction - followed by a determination to track down every possible location where there may be cameras that might have caught a glimpse of Will. He would have to ensure the police were on to it... the energetic train of thought shriveled, and Mycroft slumped in a chair, the unlikeliness of his little brother's being anywhere near a camera in this backwater hammering home his helplessness in this situation. _No, that's not the attitude! You have a brain; use it!_

"Can you tell me again what happened, Uncle?"

"Of course. It'll do me good; I keep going over and over it, and perhaps speaking out loud will help keep things straight.

"We'd had words, the night previous. Will had been up to his tricks again, deliberately knocking honey over my client accounts, thinking I'd think it was an accident, but with that cheeky smirk he gets when the devil's in him. I had to give him a bit of a hiding, and sent him up to bed. But I thought we'd made it up. I went to his room to check on him later, and it seemed so". He stopped, making a slight choking noise, then scrubbed his shaking hand over his face. "_Gods._ If anything's happened to him, I'll never forgive myself." Their eyes met, Mycroft's quietly sympathetic yet intense, Avery's hollow. The Uncle then attempted a weak smile at the nephew; an attempt to clear the air of the cloud of utter despair that seemed to have settled on the kitchen. "If this is his idea of a joke, he won't sit down again for weeks."

"So you think maybe he's run away?"

"Oh, Jesus, I hope so, Mike. The alternative's too much to contemplate." Mycroft's question had been almost pleading, one of the few signs that he was still a very young man, and both of them shuddered at the answer.

"Go on", whispered Mycroft, and Avery nodded.

"I admit, I was feeling a bit rotten afterwards, the way you do when you've had to discipline a kid, and you feel a bit of a monster, so I treated myself to a couple of glasses of Scotch on the rocks, and, typically, forgot to set my alarm. Normally, I'd wake up anyway, but I was a tad hungover and overslept. I woke up at twenty to nine, and his room was empty. I assumed he'd just taken himself off to school; didn't think any more of it besides feeling a bit guilty about not being around after the night before. I decided I'd wander down and walk him home from school, y'know, let him know he wasn't still in disgrace."

A tremor shook his cheeks for a moment, and he got up, snatched two glasses from the cupboard, and grabbed a two-thirds empty bottle of Glenmorangie from next to them. He sloshed a generous quantity into each glass, then pushed one over to Mycroft, taking a hefty swallow from his own, and bringing the bottle to the table with him. Mycroft wordlessly accepted the liquor, and took a deep gulp of his own, coughing slightly at the unaccustomed burn in his throat. It felt good, for a moment, and he took another swallow. Avery refilled his glass.

"I got to school", Avery continued, eyes staring glassily ahead as he remembered. "I watched the kids file out, then Will's teacher, Mr Golding, came up to me, and asked if Will was ill. I asked what he meant, and he told me that he hadn't turned up to school that morning. When I explained about oversleeping, he looked worried. He called a couple of Will's mates over, and asked them. They said they hadn't seen him. One of them said that he'd seemed a bit upset recently, and he was one of those serious, earnest little chaps; no chance he was lying, we'd've spotted it a mile off."

"Any idea what he might have been upset about?"

"Not really, although I suppose it gets him down sometimes about his Mummy. Anyway, I was now seriously worried, but I suppose I still expected that he'd just been playing hooky or something, and that I'd find him at home. The teachers told me to call if there was any sign of him - they'd stay at school, just in case he turned up there, though I didn't think it was very likely - they just wanted something to do. I took the alternative route home; no sign. Got back here; still no sign. I phoned the teachers; they felt we'd better call the police. At that stage, I was still expecting him to reappear at any minute, but I called them anyway.

"They were here very quickly, all things considered. Just the local sergeant at first, but, as it got dark, they called in the local CID." He shuddered again. "That's when it began to sink it that he wasn't just messing around. They were very professional, although even the Inspector only looked about ten, and the DC still in nappies. I told them what I've told you. They started organising a search." He looked up. Mycroft was staring through his whiskey glass at the table, but he looked up and met his Uncle's haggard gaze as the narrative stopped for a moment. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you right away. I suppose I still thought it would all be sorted out quickly, but when I realised it was morning, and half the village and umpteen police and dog handlers had been out all night looking for him and still no sign... that's when I called you."

Mycroft's brow was creased. He might still be in his teens, but sometimes he seemed so very old and knowing. It was obvious he was thinking, hard.

"I will take a look at his room", he announced, rising to his feet. Avery made to join him, and he spoke, unintentionally sharply. "No! I'll go alone." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then muttered "Sorry, sorry. I just need some space."

Avery's eyes followed his nephew from the room. His expression was strange. It could almost be read as calculating.

-oOo-

_Hm. Now what's Avery playing at?_

_Please do read and review - thanks to all you kind reviewers so far, especially those of you who let me know which bits you like._


	15. Chapter 15: Treading Carefully

**Chapter 15**

**Treading Carefully**

Mycroft stood in Will's bedroom, allowing his senses to reach out, desperately sucking I the very atmosphere in the room, wordlessly begging that it would tell him where his little brother could have got to. When concentrating intently on things, they would seem to shimmer, as if in a heat haze. He had not realised this was unusual for years; Will felt the same way too. Now every surface in that room seemed to pulsate, as if alive with the essence of Will running through it. He inhaled, taking in the scents and tastes of the room. He even listened; not because he expected to hear anything, but because he had taught himself never to expect to _not_ notice anything - you could miss so much that way.

Something filtered through. The scent of washing powder. His nostrils flared delicately, tracing the scent. He crossed to Will's bed, frowning, and examined the sheets and duvet.

They were freshly laundered. He frowned again. Kind old Pat from the village had her set days when she would come and clean and wash the sheets; had done for years. She should not have been here for four days, yet these sheets smelt completely fresh. How odd. They must have been washed after Will disappeared, yet the bed looked crinkled, as if somebody had lain upon it.

Mycroft's fingers absently rubbed the back of his neck. Something prickled there.

He looked around the rest of the room. He opened the drawers. A fairly normal looking selection of clothes. He didn't know the ins and outs of his brother's wardrobe; he couldn't tell if anything was missing.

Suddenly, he was struck by an important absence. He crossed to the bed, and lifted the covers. Nothing, just a pair of pyjamas scrumpled under the pillow. _Also freshly laundered, so why are they scrunched up like this? Pat puts them away._ He pulled the bed out. _Ah_. A few fibres clung to the slightly peeling paint on the corner of the wall, where a gap would be created from the rounding of the mattress corner. Something soft had been hidden down here and withdrawn regularly by the look of the tiny flakes of paint.

He heard Avery enter the room, and again reached to scratch at his neck.

"Do you see anything, Mike?"

"It's more what I don't see. Where is Aramis?"

"Aramis?"

"Will's stuffed spaniel."

"Bit old for cuddly toys, isn't he? Perhaps he's grown out of such silly things."

Mycroft closed his eyes. Aramis had been one of the constants making it plain that his sometimes cold little brother was a child of flesh and blood and heart like any other. He would sleep with his face buried in the worn fur, as if breathing in comfort. Avery's attitude explained why Will felt the need to hide his weakness, but didn't explain where the toy was now. As for him having grown out of it, Mycroft was not about to admit that the threadbare Masala, his own stuffed animal (_"Tarka Masala - it's like Tikka Masala but a little otter"_), was still hidden under his pillow in his room at school.

"You're probably right. I've been away for a long time, I suppose". His stomach churned with guilt at his words. His decision to not come home for the last two holidays had not been entirely centred around Sherlock, as the opportunities recently afforded him had given him the most valuable connections. However, he had felt that Sherlock needed time with Avery; time to establish a bond and reestablish the truculent yet entirely sane personality he had been born with. He was questioning that decision now; wondering how much of his motivation had been subconsciously avoiding the unpleasant realities of home. Will was never a great letter writer, but the scraps he had sent, in reply to Mycroft's longer and more regular communications, suggested that things were going well with his Uncle, and Mycroft had seized a the chance to believe it. He was unsure why his perspective was shifting, but there had been that look he had seen Avery giving him, reflected in the silver door handle from the kitchen. Definitely calculating.

In a skill he was rapidly perfecting, Mycroft wiped his face clear, and arranged the expression Avery expected to see upon his face - grief, worry and vulnerability.

"Where _is_ he, Uncle Avery?" He summoned a few fat tears; not at all difficult to do, given the circumstances, and allowed himself to lean into the warm, secure embrace that was on offer.

Later, with a circumspection he could still not entirely explain, Mycroft sneaked up into the attic. He had not been up here for years; it was dusty, and the climb up the ladder was usually beneath his portly dignity. However, he still had a fairly accurate idea of what should be here.

_Tent; gone. Rucksack; gone. Old salopets; gone._

Had Mum had a clear out before she became unwell? Unlikely, else why would she have kept those dreadful Gog and Magog statues standing gathering dust in the corner? And there were his old ski boots, from the days before he had indignantly refused to participate any longer. A patch of dust showed where an old pair of his wellington boots had stood. They had been recently removed. The police had obviously shone a light around up here, ascertained there was nowhere for a child or a body to hide, and come down again, but Mycroft was a little cleverer than that.

Suddenly, he felt sure that Will had left under his own steam. So why hadn't the police dogs been able to track him, then? The thought struck him; if Will wore his brother's boots, his scent would be far less potent, particularly if he wrapped his feet in some fashion. Then, the dogs would just follow his route to school, surely?

What to do about this? An unfamiliar sensation was sneaking over him - he felt very young and powerless. He could rationalise the feeling, but he didn't like it. Of one thing he was certain; he no long trusted his Uncle Avery.

He pondered the situation that afternoon. When he felt he might be going mad from cabin fever, he walked to Will's school, to make enquiries.

He met with Mr Golding, whom he easily identified as a bully suffering from remorse. Deciding the man probably deserved to continue torturing himself, he nevertheless asked about the day Will had disappeared.

"I hadn't thought much was wrong, to be honest, Mr Holmes. Not everyone rings in the first day their kids are off sick or whatever. But your Uncle looked so anxious when he came to pick Will up, I thought at first he must be really ill or something. Then we realised Will was missing, and I suppose we assumed he'd show up. Just to let you know, Mr Holmes, everyone in school's praying for his safe return". _Spare me your ritualistic superstitious empty platitudes. No sane person in this country believes in a Father Christmas type entity who grants them wishes anymore,_ thought Mycroft, bitterly. He did not betray his thoughts by so much as a flicker, instead deciding to capitalise on the man's desire to be helpful.

"How has Will been, recently, Mr Golding? Happy, sad, worried, angry?"

"Well, now you mention it, he has been a bit quiet for a while. Mr Wright, his teacher from last year, said he seemed to have been getting a little more outgoing again since your Uncle arrived, and he was making a bit more effort with the other kids again. But he seemed withdrawn again when he came back. He's a brilliant boy, when he puts his mind to it, but he's seemed distracted all term. I have been a bit worried about him, to be honest. I'd been thinking maybe I should do something", he added, virtuously, but with the darkness of guilt behind his gaze. _Yes and you did nothing. I hope you are ashamed of yourself for the rest of your life, but please, please let it not be at my brother's expense._

"Do you have any idea exactly what was bothering him?"

"I'm afraid not. I've asked his friends, but they haven't really been spending any time with him recently, and I suppose he wouldn't have told them even if they had. He is rather an uncommunicative little lad."

Mycroft was suddenly seized by a vivid memory of Will, in the days when they'd still called him Sherlock, trotting towards him with some treasure he had just unearthed, his face aglow with excitement, and practically wriggling with his eagerness to share his find. _Uncommunicative, my arse. He was a lovely child, you just had to know how to handle him._ He swallowed the lump in his throat, thanking Mr Golding peremptorily but perfectly politely (he wasn't going to distract the man from his self-recriminations by making him angry), and left to walk back to the house.

As he walked his mind was racing.

_Will had been miserable for a while. Will's sheets and pyjamas were freshly washed. My boots are gone, and so is the tent and rucksack and my salopets. Uncle Avery had to give him a hiding the night before. Will doesn't speak to his friends any longer. The police dogs couldn't find him. Uncle Avery keeps whiskey in the kitchen cupboards, instead of the less convenient drinks cabinet - and there were two full bottles of Glenmorangie in there when I left; the bottle he had last night had a new label, so he must have been drinking a fair bit. Uncle Avery gave me a strange look when I rebuffed him. Uncle Avery looked worried before he got to school, but he thought he was picking Will up..."_

Mycroft stopped in his tracks, suddenly trembling. What had Avery done? Had his _hiding_ gone a bit too far, and that's why Will ran away? Suddenly Mycroft wished very much for someone older to come and take this horrid responsibility of worry away, but that didn't seem likely.

_He took both sets of my salopets. The second pair would be hopelessly too big for him. He intends to be gone for a long time. But what could have happened that was bad enough that he felt he had to? Did the 'hiding' go too far? Oh, god, is that why the sheets were washed?_

The not knowing what to do was crushing. He would be the first to admit, he was wildly speculating. What if he accused Avery of brutality, and then Will showed up, full of some mischief he had accomplished? It might offend his Uncle so much that he would refuse to look after his nephew any longer, and what was to become of the wild, fiercely intelligent, and fragile child then? No, it was too early to give voice to any suspicions. But he would watch Avery. He would watch him carefully.

-oOo-

_Careful, Mycroft. You are only a kid, and your Uncle... well, he isn't a very nice man, is he?_

_Chapter 16 is already written, and will be up very soon..._


	16. Chapter 16: The Creature

**Chapter 16**

**The Creature**

Sherlock woke with a start, not knowing at first where he was. It was dark. It was velvety-quiet. It smelt musty, like forgotten boxes in the attic, like a wet sock mislaid in his schoolbag. His pillow was hard - his whole bed was hard. His body ached. His face, though, was pressed into the warm not-quite-fur of Aramis, and that scent was familiar. By the time he had completed his first inhalation, memory had reestablished itself.

He felt around and found his torch, lighting it to stare at the seam running along the roof of his tent. This was home. He felt a curious detachment from the word; he was safe, but also entirely alone. His mind wouldn't tell him what he felt about this, and his stomach began to crawl at the dislocation. He tried out some other feelings, uncomfortable at the strange new numbness within him. Uncle Avery: nothing. Mike: nothing. Mum: nothing. This was _wrong_. He struggled to get the feelings back; even the horrible ones belonged to him; he should be able to choose which he responded to. A bleak, creeping distress at the hollow sensation began pinching at him. This was a sensation, an emotion, in itself, wasn't it? But it was as if it wasn't part of him. He couldn't explain it, but he felt as he was being somehow filled with emptiness by this black _thing_ that crept into his brain, and he _hated _it, hated it with all his being, but his mind didn't seem to be working well enough to fight it off. He couldn't think, couldn't think, but everything was _noise_ and _pushing_ inside his head, yet so _empty_ at the same time. In a weak attempt to fight the terrible sense of oblivion-overload, he tried to concentrate on strong memories. He even dwelt over and over about that last time Uncle Avery had come into his room, to at least feel _something_, but the images just seemed to get stuck there and suck more of the deafening oblivion into his head, until he couldn't stand it, couldn't stand it, couldn't stand it.

Desperately, he dropped the torch and clutched his hair with both fists, _pulling_ and _pulling_ in an attempt to clear his head. He heard a slight tearing noise, as some of his hair came loose. He felt a little better. He gritted his teeth until they hurt, then grabbed his lower lip between them and bit down until he tasted copper. A bit better again. Suddenly, he was frantically kicking his way out of his sleeping bag, tearing clumsily at the zip of the tent, stumbling his way to the door of the hut, snatching at the bolt, and yanking it open.

He stood, blinking it bright sunshine, his breath fogging in the early morning air, the cold crisp breeze drying the sweat on his skin and raising goosebumps. The barrage of simple sensations - heat, light, cold - pushed back the terrifying void in his mind, and he stood there gasping the chill air into the bottom of his lungs, wondering what on earth had happened to him, and desperately hoping it wouldn't happen again.

Nervously, he probed his worse memory of Uncle Avery, like a tongue feeling for a broken tooth, and felt the clutch of fear in his stomach.

He'd never felt so perversely relieved. His breath was panting, his heart pounding, and he was alive. Not filled with deafening emptiness.

He padded in his bare feet over the crumbly earth by the door, avoiding the brambles, and looked at his surroundings. The hills sparkled in a myriad of colours; the glints of dew lit up by sunshine, and the yellows and oranges serving as contrast to the dusky purples and mysterious dark shadows. The landscape looked dangerous and wild. He would explore it all, always needing to be careful, as, if he was seen, he could be caught. In the nighttime, he would need to make his way down in the rustling, living darkness to the small town he could see nestling in the valley in the distance, to forage for food, ever on the alert, as being caught would spell disaster. Excitement flooded through him like crashing seawater, washing away the dirty feeling of the oily black emptiness.

It was still there, lurking in the corner of his mind like a twisted shadowy creature, but this time he didn't probe at it. He pushed it firmly away, out of sight.

He hugged himself, shivering now, and thought of the adventure of it all. And grinned.

-oOo-

_Tough cookie, isn't he? What adventures are hidden in these mountains for him? _

_Thanks for reading! Thanks for your reviews as well; some were fantastically detailed, and all gave me a warm glow!_


	17. Chapter 17: The Nesting Box

**Chapter 17: The Nesting Box**

Mycroft arrived back from the school to find Avery sitting in the kitchen, staring at a cooling cup of tea. _At least it's not more Scotch_, he thought, wondering why he felt so censorious. The spectacle of people drinking had never bothered him before.

"Any joy, Mike?" asked his Uncle, his voice husky with worry.

"Nothing definitive, or even particularly helpful", he muttered despondently in reply. "They said Will's been rather subdued recently, but that could be about Mummy."

Avery scrubbed his fingers through his hair, his posture slumped. "I honestly thought he was getting better. Maybe I have to hope he wasn't, that there really was something I should have known about but didn't, but I just feel so _fucking_ inadequate that I didn't spot anything. I've been sitting here racking my brains since you left, trying to figure out why he could have gone, where he could have gone, but I just keep drawing a blank."

"Will could even hide his feelings from Mummy and I if he wanted to. I doubt you could have known there was anything wrong if he didn't want you to know." Mycroft uttered the words of consolation automatically, but his brain was suddenly thrown into a whirling intensity of concentration. Because Avery was lying again, albeit a potentially tiny lie, but still... he had not been sitting in the kitchen since his nephew had left. There was a tiny dusting of still-damp garden mud on his right slipper. You had to go beyond the lawn before you got to soil; in fact there were not many places where the topsoil was exposed.

He had been outside, to the bottom of the garden, in fact. What else had he done? Mycroft surreptitiously cast his eyes around the room. Hmm... he'd moved the fridge; the slight marks on the floor and spindly grey dust on his trouser-cuffs were clear evidence of that. Strange thing to do. Looking for something? Could be entirely trivial. Yet might not be.

Mycroft was pottering around making fresh coffee for them both, when he heard the soft crunch of shoes on gravel outside the kitchen door, which he had left open, feeling an usual need for air. His Uncle's hearing was doubtless not as good as his own, as, when two men (plain clothes police detectives, already been here, obvious), knocked on the door jamb, and poked their heads around the door with polite, grave hellos, Avery jumped violently. His eyes flew momentarily to the kitchen window. Surreptitiously, Mycroft followed his gaze. _The oak tree. More specifically, the nesting box that Mummy and I made on the oak tree. It's got the right sort of mud underfoot. He _is _hiding something... and he's nervous about the police finding out._

A strange mixture of triumph and despair flooded Mycroft for a moment, so that, although he managed to greet the two detective police officers with an impeccable attitude, he felt as if he was witnessing the next few minutes from outside himself: although he remembered every word, every intonation, every mannerism, in exact detail, he could not remember a single thought or emotion that passed through his head afterwards. He could therefore not say why he fought so hard to hide his growing suspicion from the detectives; he could only assume it was from a need to control the situation.

The detectives did look disturbingly young. Detective Inspector Andrew Foster was tall, blond, clean shaven, thirty five to thirty eight, and conscious of his appearance and position if the exactitude with which he had trimmed his sideburns was anything to go by. He interviewed Mycroft with a grave, gentle thoroughness, which the young civil servant acknowledged, although he was later more impressed with the constable, whom Avery had described as barely out of nappies.

The Detective Constable was twenty two or three, and a graduate entrant at the beginning of his police career, judging by his blend of three different recently acquired inflections to his accent. There was an alert quality to his deceptively soft brown eyes that had to be respected.

The police officers updated Avery and Mycroft and compared notes upon the findings so far - nothing significant as yet.

As the interview progressed, Mycroft became sure that the young Constable mistrusted Avery, although was equally sure that nobody less perceptive than himself would have spotted that fact. It puzzled him, as he could not logically account for the detective's suspicion, outside of the basic crime statistics of course. Perhaps it was something as simple as that. However, he didn't think so.

The Constable, Greg, as he preferred to be known (_still young enough to be uncomfortable with modes of formal address, finds people underestimate and open up to him more if they find him unassuming_), was talking to them about doing a television appeal asking anybody who may have seen Will to come forward. Mycroft agreed automatically, hearing his Uncle echo the acquiescence.

Preparing for the broadcast was a time consuming process, despite the best efforts of the PR team from the police force to make things easy for them. A surprisingly large number of reporters had already gathered, obviously drawn like scavengers to carrion by the juicy story of a missing child.

Mycroft looked at the picture they had chosen of Will. It had been taken as he set up the microscope his big brother had rescued from the laboratory refit at his school. It was eight months old, but there were no more recent photographs where Will had made any eye contact with the camera. He looked almost too pretty to be a boy; pale skin, full lips, shiny dark brown hair, almost silver eyes under long dark eyelashes. Mycroft thought of what people would assume on seeing it, and felt sick.

They made the appeal, both of them surely fighting against the instinct that it was a futile gesture. Avery came across as the perfect concerned relative. Flash bulbs flashed, cameras clicked. Mycroft resisted the impulse to shrink away from the harsh attention, and tried not to think about what he would say to Mummy - although he doubted she could really take in the situation in full.

It was dark when Constable Greg (Mycroft _was_ comfortable with formality, and reached this compromise term of address within his own head) drove them home. There was another constable on duty at the house - a crime scene now, Mycroft supposed.

Avery poured himself another whiskey, and this time his nephew joined him, trying not to make it obvious that he was not taking his eyes off him. His Uncle took a hot drink out to the police officer, still impeccably mannered despite the aura of grief.

That night, sleep would have been impossible, even if Mycroft could have rid himself of the gnawing sensation that Avery was concealing something. He thought back to the glance the man had given towards the bird box on the tree in the garden, and felt more convinced than ever that something was hidden there. He had wandered out earlier in the day, and, on casually passing the spot, had seen the ladder marks in the ground. However, Mycroft had not already established himself, with the minimal amount of exertion, on a political career before he had even _started_ university, without being a master strategist. Finding the item, whatever it was, was likely to be less informative than seeing what his Uncle did with it. Therefore, he set himself to subtly watch his quarry's movements.

Under the roof was a video camera that his mother had bought, despite the almost painful expense, in a manic moment of enthusiasm. With a little rigging, it was no difficult feat to suspend it under the eaves, pointing at the tree, whilst its output fed back to his old black and white TV. He could thus sit in his room and watch the driveway and the tree simultaneously; keeping Avery under surreptitious surveillance. When he heard a tread on the stairs, he could simply hide the wires and change the channel.

Avery, was, however, kept busy for most of the day by phone calls, speaking to the police and press, speaking to family and well-wishers and/or rubberneckers from the village. Father phoned. He made pathetic excuses not to come home, and almost put Mycroft back in charity with his Uncle, when he heard the genuine indignation in his relative's voice as he denounced the unforgivable lack of parental dedication.

Avery was shaking with anger as he hung up.

"My brother", he growled, his eyes hooded with anger "deserves to be strung up by his toenails for the way he deserted you two, and to hear him speak now, all sham worry and sympathy, while he stays away from anything that smacks of responsibility, makes me sick, even though it also makes me think you're better off without him... Sorry, sorry, kid. Not for me to say. But he makes my blood boil - he always was..."

He choked himself off and turned away. Mycroft thought he had never seen anybody look sadder. At least in this emotion, he was genuine.

The next day, a uniformed constable remained on duty outside the house, while the process of trying to find a lost child continued without much success, beyond scrappy small leads that largely seemed irrelevant, and Mycroft felt sicker hour by hour. He made innumerable phone calls himself, pulled local strings, called in old family favours, but drew a blank. Somehow, though, he still felt his best lead was watching Avery. For a boy used to his creature comforts, the lack of sleep was beginning to tell on him, and his face sagged beneath his "puppy fat", but he dismissed these considerations as unimportant.

The day after that, the constable was recalled, and the house was their own again.

At eleven minutes to eight the following morning, Avery slipped out into the garden and removed a small object from the tree. It was a time where he was unlikely to observed, but that no passer-by would think it strange that he was up and about. The item went into his pocket. The grainy camera footage gave no further information that this, but Mycroft was on high alert.

He stole downstairs, but found Avery standing in the kitchen. The object was in his pocket - the outline was just visible. It was cylindrical, six centimetres in length, three in diameter. Mycroft thought it looked like a film canister, but he supposed it could contain all manner of things.

"Morning, Mike. Did you manage any sleep?"

"A little."

"May be some news today. What are you planning on doing?"

"Not sure. Maybe speak to the drivers at the bus depot again. Drink lots of tea." He gave a convincing huff of despondent frustration. Avery gave his shoulders a squeeze.

"I thought I might get out for a walk, y'know, I feel a bit caged. Will you be OK if I'm gone for a couple of hours or so?"

"I'll be fine. If anything happens and I need to go out, I'll leave you a note on the table."

"You should get some sunlight yourself, you know. I'd ask you to come along with me, but I know you're not one for long walks, not like..." He broke off, shaking his head slightly.

Mycroft smiled, wanly. "Maybe I'll take your advice. See you later, Uncle."

As Avery walked out of the door, Mycroft was already scribbling _Gone for think. Back later _on to a page of his notebook. He waited until his Uncle had reached the gate, then followed.

His Uncle set a brisk pace, and Mycroft, unused to physical exercise, was soon pink faced and out of breath, but he gritted his teeth, ignored the stitch in his side, and kept Avery in view.

After three miles and nine hundred and sixty-two yards, Avery turned into Readington End Allotments, and headed towards a slightly neglected patch with a sturdy little shed at one end. _Strange place to come in winter, especially as I never knew he had any interest in gardening_. There were very few other people about; just an elderly lady tending to some squat little bushes, and a figure in a battered Metro, head hidden behind a newspaper.

Avery let himself into the shed, and Mycroft was glad he had hidden himself behind the office, as his Uncle gave a ludicrously obvious paranoid glance all around before letting himself in.

Indecisive, Mycroft stood where he was for eleven minutes, before determining to approach the shed, and, if necessary, confront his Uncle. After all, he was famously diplomatic when he wanted to be; he could always plead lack of sleep and stress if he had maligned his relative in any way.

He stole up to the shed, but, as he got close, he decided he would peek through the small window before revealing his presence. If, for instance, the interior of the shed bore all the remarks of a bibliophile's retreat or similar, he could steal away again without stirring contention.

The window was ajar, although a thick curtain was pulled over it. A chemical smell that, after a moment, Mycroft recognised as developing fluid, informed him why the window needed to be open yet the curtain closed. The prickling feeling on his neck was there again.

He eased aside the edge of the curtain. Yes, his Uncle was developing something.

There was a crawling in his stomach that he didn't want to face, a deduction too nasty to complete yet too dark to ignore.

He stood still for a moment, listening intently for any sign he may have been discovered, whilst he simultaneously argued with himself over what to do. He could hear Avery moving about inside, no sounds coming from within that would suggest he knew he was being watched. There was a slight metallic click - probably a cupboard door being opened, but otherwise just soft, industrious shuffling.

He padded softly to the door of the shed and leaned down to inspect the lock. The door was simply on the latch; it wasn't locked at all.

Mycroft decided what he had to do. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, then abruptly opened the door and stepped inside.

He had a split second to stare, then freeze in horror, then give a strangled cry of "No! _NO_!" at the sight of the contents of a photograph album propped open on a small desk. It filled his mind; the realisation that his Uncle appeared to have disappeared came a split second later.

As he whirled, knowing the only logical place Avery could be was behind him, behind the door, something smashed into his skull with shattering force.

Mycroft fell to the ground, and lay still.

-oOo-


	18. Chapter 18: Clichédly

**Chapter 18**

**Cliched-ly**

Lestrade helped Sherlock into the back of his car, rather than the passenger seat, before giving John a speaking look. Wordlessly, John climbed into the back seat beside his breathless friend, and briefly laid a hand on the bony shoulder.

As the car crawled out of the driveway, no-one spoke. The silence was oppressive, but John felt breaking it before Sherlock or Lestrade did would be interrupting the understanding the two detectives seemed to share. Sherlock was looking down at his gloves, plucking disconsolately at the leather. Strangely still; usually his fidgeting was on a much grander scale.

Suddenly, the curly head lifted, and Sherlock's silver, bloodshot eyes stared with their usual discomfiting intensity into John's.

"OK. You have questions."

"Only if your answering them would help you in some way. You don't have to tell me anything". He almost kicked himself then, as there was every chance Sherlock would take this as a dismissal, or refuse to acknowledge that talking could ever be of any benefit to him. However, the detective turned to look out of the window, and muttered;

"It's probably only appropriate that you know the accurate details. You won't be able to stop speculating otherwise, what with Anderson's inspired blurting today. Although you probably wouldn't be far wrong. Lestrade already knows."

The back of Lestrade's head seemed to tense.

"Shall we wait until we get back to Baker Street?" asked John, as gently as possible. "Call me clichéd-ly British, but I think this kind of conversation may be better on a sofa with a cup of tea rather than in a car where one of us is trying to concentrate on driving." So as to underscore that this was consideration, not prevarication, he carefully rested his hand on Sherlock's lower arm, trying to convey trust through touch, but feeling as if he was reaching out to a spooked wild animal.

"_Clichéd-ly_ is not only not a real word, but also an abominable approximation of one", drawled Sherlock, voice as coldly dismissive as ever, as he rested his hot forehead against the cold glass of the window. However, for a moment, the corners of his mouth made the barest upward twitch, and he removed his arm from John's soft clasp, only to reach for his freed hand and link his long gloved fingers through John's.

-oOo-

_Short little chapter, I know, especially for those of you who want more Sherlock and John. Call it a lick and a promise…._

_Thanks so much for your ongoing reviews. You're all so good to keep following me when I drop off the face of the planet for weeks on end! I do try, honest…_


	19. Chapter 19: Putting Down Roots

**Chapter 19**

**Putting Down Roots**

The rain had been hammering down on the corrugated roof of the shed all night. Every so often, a drop would patter onto the canvas - Sherlock had tried to plug the worst of the leaks with a mixture of woven bracken and newspaper, but the outer shell of The Hay Wain was still only partially water-tight.

He lay wrapped in his sleeping bag, wearing Mycroft's baggy salopets to help keep out the cold. And it was unseasonably cold, too. Sherlock often thought longingly of warm, soft beds - but not his bed back in his old home though. If he ever needed to quiet the longing for creature comforts, he only had to direct his mind towards that particular bed, and he was immediately grateful for his makeshift dead heather and newspaper mattress in the cold, musty smelling hideaway.

He had been here a week now. He had started by familiarising himself thoroughly with his surroundings; taking long walks around the decaying countryside, ensuring he knew where he would run to if he ever needed to hide, finding potential dead ends and dangers. He had been surprised by how glad the sight of the first early green shoots of hardy snowdrops had made him feel - someday soon, they would transform his new home from a wasteland to an idyll.

On the night of the second day, he had decided he needed to make the trip to the supermarket, as it would not do to leave it until he was running out of food, only to find stealing from the rubbish was going to be difficult.

He had found the bins around the back of the Co-op, fortunately concealed in their own little alcove. They were padlocked shut, but it was not at all difficult to unpick the padlocks.

The smell was pretty unpleasant, and for a moment he found himself recoiling in dismay. He chastised himself, not to be such a baby. There were plenty of sealed things that would be unaffected by their unsavoury surroundings.

Two loaves of bread, sell-by date today. Dented tins of rice pudding, oxtail soup, macaroni cheese, pears in syrup, peaches in syrup, ravioli, and Heinz beans with sausages. A carton of six eggs, three broken, three intact. Several bags of slightly wrinkled looking apples. A cucumber, squishy at one end, OK at the other. A punnet of mushrooms, sell-by date yesterday. A large block of cheddar cheese, the packaging torn and one end dry and hard. Four six-pint plastic cartons of milk - he could empty most of the milk out and use the large containers to fetch water from the outside tap on the farm. Multiple packets of Fruit Corner yogurt, sell-by date today. Large bags of spinach, sell-by dates today. And to his delight, a torn and squashed selection pack of treat-size Cadbury's chocolate bars.

Sherlock had loaded his rucksack with as much of his treasure as he could carry, then decided to add a few old newspapers to his load from the bundle at the back of the skip. His stomach gave a lurch as he picked up a pile, and spotted his own face staring back at him from the front page of _The Daily Mail_. In typical hyperbolic language, the article gushed about the "devastated family and small, close-knit community", and how they were "desperate for any sign of their missing child". He had snorted to himself. He would bet that most of the village busybodies were relishing all the drama; he barely knew half of them, and half of the rest probably hadn't really liked him all that much anyway, but they loved a good piece of juicy gossip. Reluctantly, he had turned the page, and recoiled, his heart hammering, from a picture of a red-eyed Avery and Mycroft sitting with the police at a press appeal. He had forced himself to read on: how his "_distraught Uncle, who has cared for William since his mother fell ill, appealed for anyone who had seen or heard anything of his missing nephew to urgently come forward_." Shivering, he'd thrown the paper down.

"So that's why Mum says this paper's rubbish", he had whispered to himself, mostly to hear the sound of his own voice, to convince himself that he really was here, and safe.

He hadn't been able to stop shivering the entire way back home.

Following this, he had promised himself that he would not look at any newspapers again, at least until the fuss must have died down. The thought of reading of his Uncle's searching for him chilled him to the bone.

It had increased his determination to make his life here permanent. This, however, was the first day it had rained, and it struck him how dull that life would be if he was trapped inside his gloomy little shed for days on end. He was sensible enough to realise that if he got wet, it would be difficult to get dry again. He needed a wet weather option.

His solution was quite easy, in the end. The farm had corners of rusting, mouldering junk, that the farmer had evidently just dumped, rather than going to the effort of disposing of it properly. He abstracted a large quantity of plastic wrapping, and then found himself drawn towards the main storage shed, at first, just to look. It was mainly used to store hay, but also inside was a plainly broken, rusted ancient tractor, and an equally dilapidated jeep with a broken windscreen. A few rusty tools were strewn about the room. A slightly audacious idea struck him, and he crept to the door, to check for signs of life, although he already knew the farmer was in one of his far fields, a mile and a half away, whilst his wife went to work. Once he had re-verified this to his satisfaction, he selected his tools from the pile, and opened the door of the jeep. There was glass, dust and scraps of hay and chaff all over the torn and cracked seats. The foam stuck out, and it smelt as if there had been mice there in the past.

He ducked down to look under the seats, and it didn't take him long to work out how to loosen them. It was physically difficult, and he slipped several times, barking his fingers and knuckles, and working up a sweat, but after an hour, interspersed with re-checking that no-one was coming back, he was able to remove the seats from the vehicle. He very much doubted anyone would notice they were gone for a long time.

He ferried both seats back to his shed, carrying them on his back like a snail. He also took an old saw, and stole several lengths of binding twine from the hay. Having set the seats down, he walked up to the nearby woodland, and cut himself twelve long straight sticks with the saw, bringing them back down to his shed. He tied them together into a cube, fixed some of the plastic over the top and three of the sides, and placed his creation by the door of his shed, over one seat from the jeep. He stood back to survey his handiwork.

"Shall we take tea in the conservatory, Sherlock?

"How nice, thank you, Sherlock." He giggled to himself.

Next, he carried the second chair, the saw, and the remaining string and plastic back to the woods. The drab pines only covered a couple of square miles, but he still managed to find a tangled patch with a clearing, sheltered all around by trees. He created a makeshift tent from the plastic, and placed the chair underneath. Grinning, he sat down in it, placing his feet up on a log he had found nearby. There was the gentle patter of the soft drizzle and wind in the trees, and the occasional louder sound of drips falling from the trees onto the plastic. Nearby, a bird sung, answered by another. A wild animal chattered to itself. There was a stream nearby. Far off, he could hear the occasional car engine, but no other sounds of human life.

His makeshift armchair and footstool were surprisingly comfortable. It was quite light here, in this little clearing in the middle of nowhere. He could read here; ensure he kept his brain sharp whilst out in the open air, yet still sheltered from the worst of the wind and rain, surrounded by these little constant sounds. And he even had another comfortable chair back at his shed.

For now, he was happy.

-oOo-

_Well, I'm afraid I disappeared off the face of the planet again. This time, I've written several chapters before posting, so I'll release them over the next week or so. There will be a bit of grown-up Sherlock coming up soon, for those who are waiting. _

_Reviews remain welcome! As I said, I've written several chapters in advance. Althought they're done, I can always add little addendums if anyone has any specific requests, if those requests fit in to the story._

_Anyway, thanks for staying with me!_


	20. Chapter 20: The NotGood Life

**Chapter 20**

**The Not-Good Life**

Sherlock's life settled into a routine of sorts.

After a month, he was longing for some fresh material for his brain. He decided the time was right to continue his education and visit the town library.

He went on a Saturday, so that nobody would wonder why he wasn't in school. He made sure he looked clean and tidy. He smiled sweetly at the librarian, and explained that his mother couldn't come today, but could he join anyway, please? When beamed at, and told of course he could, he neatly filled out a library card with a carefully non-existent house number in a local estate.

Sherlock started visiting the library regularly, taking out science textbooks, history textbooks, and novels (supposedly to prevent attention being drawn to his heavier reading, but he found he actually quite enjoyed them). He set about the task of educating himself in earnest, devoting at least five hours a day to study, comfortably ensconced in his woodland armchair. He would scribble notes and diagrams on a flat stone he had picked up, using softer pieces of the limestone rock hereabouts, feeling pleasingly Victorian. He found it so much easier to learn when he wasn't hemmed in by a lot of other idiots, half of whom delighted in teasing or distracting him.

The rest of the time, he had to concentrate on "housekeeping": finding ways to clean his clothes, clean himself (important, if he wanted to avoid undue notice on his weekend forays into town), change his bedding, fetch water, find food, heat food. He discovered the trick of heating stones in the ground, which helped conserve the gas in his paraffin stove. He discovered the importance of scavenging: for materials to make rat traps, which helped prevent them eating all his things; for rigging up an outdoor shower from black tarpaulin wrapping from hay-bales, which actually warmed the water to tepid on a reasonably sunny day; for chicken wire to protect his food if the rat traps failed. Awareness of necessity, and a gritty sense of achievement, stopped it being entirely unbearable, but it was all astonishingly time consuming and he swore to himself he would never bother with this sort of drudgery when he was old enough to safely reenter civilisation.

In a way, though, it was just as well he was so busy. Sometimes, he would be sitting quietly, and would feel the breath of that dark creature of emptiness that had assailed him in his first morning here. The physical exercise kept it at bay, and he became skilled at recognising and forestalling its approaches, until it began to seem less and less of a threat.P

Just as he was beginning to feel confident, the first illness struck.

It was probably 'flu, but he had never been so unwell. He alternated between raging heat and painful shivermjing. He vomited consistently for twelve hours. He developed a hoarse, racking cough. His bones felt as if they were breaking into tiny splinters. It felt like night after night that he lay in his tent, longing to be well again, and often weeping in self-pity because he wasn't. His supplies began to dwindle, because even leaving the tent for essential reasons felt like running a marathon.

After five days, his clean water supply ran out, and he had to venture the half mile to the farm's nearest outside taps to refill the milk containers. It took him almost three hours, as he kept having to sink to the ground in exhaustion. On the twelfth time this happened, he just lay there, face down and shivering, not caring if anyone saw him, not caring if he got caught and sent home. Even his Uncle couldn't be worse than this. He was filled with an intense longing for his Mum, well again. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe she was there, stroking his hair away from his face with a cool flannel, giving him Calpol (the nice pink stuff, not that orange Six-Plus muck), telling him stories. He had almost enjoyed being ill as a little boy; had enjoyed the attention and pampering which he would usually have shrugged off in embarrassment.

Greasy tears leaked from the corners of his closed eyes and trickled down his nose. It tickled; irritating.

"_Mummy_".

He wasn't sure how long he lay there; proof in itself that he was not himself. Eventually, enough energy returned to him that he was able to sit up (cold ground must have lowered the fever, he thought, faculties returning). From there, standing, hefting the two heavy containers of water, and walking the hundred and eighty yards back to the Hay Wain was painful, but attainable. He only had to stop briefly on two occasions.

It was another three days before he began to recover, and another two days before he could contemplate going to town for food. He wore both pairs of salopets, and took his sleeping bag, as he anticipated, correctly as it turned out, that he would not make the return journey in one go.

After this ordeal, Sherlock decided he would have to part with a little money from his meagre stash, to be better prepared.

Next time he ventured into town on a Saturday, when he was fully well again, he bought two large sealed bottles of water for emergencies, some packets of soup, and two packs of snack size Snickers bars - they'd keep forever, and be good emergency food. In the chemist's, he bought Paracetamol, bandages, rehydration salts and TCP (he had written out the list in an adult hand: _Please provide my son with the following items_).

As the pharmacist busied herself fetching the items, Sherlock dropped and rolled a cheap bouncy ball he had bought behind the counter, and gave chase. By the time she had gently shooed him out, he had a packet of Penicillin sneaked into his back pocket. He had to admit, the theft had given him a small thrill - a little of the knot he had not realised was in his chest loosened with doing something because it was bad, rather than essential.

Transferring the pills into his coat pocket, Sherlock was struck with a sudden urge. He stood on the corner of the street for a while, making his mind up, making decisions. _Yes_, he was going to do it. He decided the Co-op was the best venue. Not the Pick'N'Mix counter; too obvious. Instead, he strolled up the aisle filled with expensive chocolate and sweet assortments. Casually, he slipped first one, then two, then three boxes inside his coat. A few people had glanced at him earlier, but no-one seemed to suspect him. _They see what they expect to see: they're surprised I'm alone, but I don't fit their idea of a shoplifter._ Shoplifter! He was a criminal. He kept his face impassive, but felt his cheeks burn with excitement. His heart was thudding. Getting caught would be a disaster; this was massively dangerous. He walked out of the shop. No-one stopped him.

He was grinning madly to himself as he started the long walk back to base with his new library books and his paid-for and stolen goods. He hadn't felt so good in ages.

By the time he got home, he was feeling so guilty and miserable that he couldn't face any of the chocolates. He struggled to understand why he felt so terrible: perhaps it was another step away from the boy he had been and the life he had lead. That night, he cried himself to sleep for the first night since his illness, and felt desperately lonely.

-oOo-


	21. Chapter 21: Time to Talk

**Chapter 21  
**

**Time to Talk**

"Right, mate, let's get you out of those clothes and horizontal". John gently manoeuvred Sherlock into the flat. The usually indefatigable detective had needed help climbing the seventeen steps into their living room, and his breathes were coming in rattling gasps.

"Thought... you'd never... ask". John smiled in fond exasperation. Trust Sherlock to be unable to resist an easy quip, even when it had to be delivered in a staccato croak.

"One of the most important signs of severe respiratory distress is the inability to talk in full sentences. If you don't want me to chicken out of looking after you at home, give yourself a moment to get your breath back before you start proselytising at me."

Sherlock's mouth twisted slightly in disapproval - John suspected he had somehow misused "proselytising" - but he obeyed, settling for pursing his lips and rolling his eyes.

John helped him perch on the arm of the sofa.

"Here or bedroom?"

"Here."

"Right. Greg, would you mind making sure he doesn't collapse in a heap while I go and get his pyjamas? Shut up, Sherlock."

As John helped his reluctantly helpless flatmate change out of the impractical sharp suit, his medical mind noted the hot, shivering gooseflesh.

"You're still roasting. You must be really uncomfortable".

"Mm. Cold."

"Right. Snuggle up under your duvet cover. I've taken the duvet out so it's not too thick; it'll feel warm without cooking you, 'cos remember you're really too hot. I'll get you a cold gel pack for your head, and it's less than an hour til you can have another round of Paracetamol and Brufen."

"You're fussing", said Sherlock, but he was smiling slightly.

"Really? So you don't want me to bring you hot lemon and honey? With fresh lemons?"

"I didn't say... I didn't like it."

John grinned, then turned to Lestrade, still hovering solicitously.

"Drink?"

"Coffee would be great, thanks. Want a hand?"

"Sure. You can check there's no biohazards in any of the mugs."

"Oh God. You're not serious?"

"Not really. He's actually pretty meticulous with anything too toxic; he just thinks this mad scientist thing is a good image."

The banter was important. They both kept it up almost as a ritual, to banish the spectre of the conversation they had already had, and the one yet to come.

John diluted the steaming liquid to drinking temperature, fetched a cool gel pack from the fridge, and carried both back into the living room. Sherlock just about managed to sit up without help, and blew into the mug, closing his eyes gratefully as soothing steam curled into them. John sat on the recently vacated sofa arm and pressed the gel pack to his forehead; the detective leaned cat-like into the touch with an involuntary whimper.

"My hair itches."

"It's the fever."

"I hate it. Being ill. Makes me behave like an idiot. Didn't want you to know all the sordid details."

"You can tell me in your own time, remember." John began absent-mindedly scoring his fingernails through the slightly sweaty dark curls, prompting Sherlock to moan in relief and drop his head back to lean against his flatmate. For a moment, his face smoothed out in relaxation, then the skin at the bridge of his nose crinkled, and a scowl followed.

"Anderson's an idiot."

"Yes, he is", cut in Lestrade, grimly. "And I'll kick his arse from here to the bloody Elephant and Castle when he's back at work, then he's up in front of the board."

"No, no. He can't help being an idiot at the best of times, and he's ill too. If he feels anywhere near as ghastly as I do, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd run through the streets proclaiming it in the nude. He didn't think it through, just assumed he'd embarrass me. He obviously didn't realise..."

His words trailed off, and he turned to glower out of the window. There was an awkward silence in the room, then he turned back suddenly and turned his glare back upon Lestrade. It was still surprisingly effective, despite the red-rimmed hollow eyes.

"Look, you tell John about it. You know the details, after all. Start at the beginning; before things started to go wrong, and try to make some kind of cohesive, unemotional narrative out of it. I don't think I could stand listening to one of your rambling down-the-pub type stories, where you skip around in time and place, and imbue the whole with noxious sentiment. Imagine you're a competent police officer compiling a report for court."

His acerbic tone was robbed of its bite by the long, nervous fingers clutching convulsively at the duvet cover, and the muscles twitching in his jaw. He looked braced for an ordeal.

Lestrade was quiet for a moment, staring into space. John was suddenly conscious of the old clock ticking on the mantelpiece. God, that was really annoying - how had he never noticed before?

Then Lestrade cleared his throat, nodded, and began to talk.

-oOo-

_Yep, I've disappeared again, but I tend to come back eventually. Disappearances are never deliberate! _

_Hope the little hint of hurt-comfort kept you going. Don't worry, more to come! There's an ENORMOUSLY long kid-Sherlock chapter pretty much written, which is partly why all this has taken so long - it all had to fit together.  
_

_ Please read and review!_


	22. Chapter 22: A Song of Seasons

**Chapter 22 **

**A Song of Seasons**

Spring was a pleasant relief from the biting cold of winter. Sherlock's woodland retreat became licked over with green shoots from the few deciduous trees; even the dour pines seemed to grow a little brighter. Sitting reading with the rain hammering on the plastic, the world outside a smudgy green haze, a great miscellany of scents wafting by, and freezing to death no longer an occupational hazard, life seemed quite pleasant.

He worked his way through a collection of ancient O-level textbooks the library had been selling off for 20p each; in maths, biology and physics. He borrowed a newer GCSE text for chemistry. He discovered a fascination with history, particularly of the most gory kind, and began devouring the library's excellent collection. He also discovered Roald Dahl, finding the fantastical stories made him curl up in horrified delight in his chair, the triumph of children over nasty adults being one of the few things that could bring a broad grin to his face. Perhaps a little of the gruesome, unpatronising morality sunk into his skin a little.

It was something of a shock to him when the three month anniversary of his self-imposed exile rolled around.

He had finished his O-level and GCSE science textbooks, and had graduated onto A-level chemistry. It was a huge leap in terms of difficulty, and his greedy mind seized the challenge eagerly. He also made himself a record of the fiction books he had read, meticulously labeled, and sometimes with comments, as he had been taught in school:

_Misellanious (full collection of novels): R Dahl (funny, good!)_

_Misellanious Famous Five and Secret Seven: E Blyton (Fun, but a bit rude to girls and mixed race people sometimes and it's not so easy in real life)_

_Misellanious Poirot: A Christie (I expect clues in real life are not so obvious. But I like the way he works everything out logicley)_

_Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: JRR Tolkein (Bit wierd but good)_

_Chronicles of Narnia: CS Lewis (Really good, but think it's a bit about God and Jesus though – yawn)_

_The Railway Children: E Nesbit (Some good dramatic bits, too many coincidances)_

_Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Really good, but sad; can't believe this was so recent, and in a so-called civilised country)_

_Oliver Twist: C Dickens (Good story, but Oliver's a bit dull)_

_David Copperfield: C Dickens (Great storytelling, but he's a bit long winded)_

_Tom Brown's Schooldays: T Hughes (I wonder if Mycroft was ever roasted?)_

_Treasure Island: RL Stevenson (Good action bits)_

_Heidi: J Spyri (Don't think goat's milk and mountains cures severe illness in real life)_

_Watership Down: R Adams (Kept forgetting they were rabbits, really good)_

_Midnight is a Place: J Aiken (Good plot)_

_The Wolves of Willoughby Chase: J Aiken (Good, bit wierd)_

_White Fang: J London (Fighty dogs)_

_Tom's Midnight Garden: P Pearce (Time traveling. Obvious, and doesn't work. Good though)_

_The Redwall Series: B Jacques (Fighty mice)_

_The Borrowers: M Norton (Would be conveniant to be really small. Could find warmer place to live. Spiders horrible thought)_

_Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: M Twain (Liked the tricks, didn't like the bit with setting fire to the dogs)_

_Goodnight Mr Tom (wonderful)_

_The Chocolate War: R Cormier (nb. Avoid this writer)_

_The Plague Dogs (unfinished): R Adams _

Goodnight Mr Tom had been difficult, as it had been about an abused boy called Will, but he had pushed himself to finish it, and found it seemed to give him a mysterious sense of strength and achievement to have done so.

The Chocolate War, on the other hand, had depressed him thoroughly, and almost brought a return of the Creature, as he had now come to know the paralysing emptiness of soul: it had angered him also, as it seemed to suggest that there was no point in trying to change anything because it would never work.

The Plague Dogs had unsettled him; one of the characters was dissociated, hallucinating and unhinged, and, reading it in a moment of vulnerability, he almost felt this was what he could turn into. He couldn't bring himself to finish it.

For the most part, though, reading helped. Life seemed to have dealt cruel hands to many people in life before him, and it lifted him to join in their triumphs.

Summer was different. It was hotter than average. There were more people about; several groups a day walking down the footpath near his woodland "study", but fortunately nobody seemed to have discovered it. He didn't want to share, and he certainly didn't want his space vandalised.

At first, the increased traffic was concerning, but then the school summer holidays started, and he had more freedom to be seen.

The sun was gorgeous at first, soaking into his skin as he roamed the nearby hills. He was learning fencing and karate from library books, practising against his own shadow, or a host of imaginary opponents, and it was a pleasant outdoor activity, running through a series of set pieces while the warmth baked him brown. His dark Creature seemed to retreat entirely; it wasn't made to withstand the sunlight.

There were additional problems though; mainly his food, which kept less well in the heat. He had dug a hole to try to keep the perishables cool, but it was only partially effective. He had to make more frequent trips, and the bins, when he arrived, were grim and stinking. It was much more difficult to find anything edible, and he suffered two bouts of food poisoning, both thankfully mild and brief, but miserable enough. Also, unfortunately, they appeared to leave him with an ongoing tendency for "gastrointestinal upset", as the old family health encyclopaedia the library had sold off primly termed it.

The Hay Wain became unimaginably hot at night, sweltering and fetid. He didn't dare leave the door too far open, in case the farmer spotted it, so he just had to lie there and cook. There was a stream in the woodland, and he took to washing his sole sheet and pillow case daily, hanging them to dry over his woodland chair. More boring work. On the other hand, just swimming in the stream was utterly delightful, and kept him perfectly clean.

He had shaved his head twice more since he had escaped, although it was growing shaggy again now he neared the six month mark. He felt he didn't really need to worry too much; the photograph he had seen of himself in the papers showed a pale child with a decent haircut, not the tanned creature he had become, with the growing-out crew cut and the ginger highlights in his sun-bleached hair. Nobody would remember anyway; he was yesterday's news.

Autumn rolled around, and it started as the pleasantest season so far. Gardens outside the town were heaving with fruit trees, half of them neglected. He filled his rucksack many times over with apples, damsons, plums and pears. He looked up how to dry the apples and pears, sealing them in a cage he had rigged from abandoned chicken wire to keep out the rats, immensely pleased with the prospect of having something healthy on hand through the winter. He gorged himself on the stoned fruit, and buried most of the more rotten ones, along with a few apples and pears, on the edge of the woodland. He even scooped up a carrier bag full of sheep poo and dumped it on top of them, hoping that he would have his own trees in a couple of years.

Blackberries were also superabundant, and equally delicious.

Towards the end of autumn, he caught a cold, and it wouldn't seem to leave him.

Two weeks later, and he was sure, on consulting the family health encyclopaedia, that he must have pneumonia. He decided he'd better take the Penicillin.

Three days later, he felt much better, so decided he'd better not waste the precious tablets and stopped taking them. Four days later, he was far worse again, and decided to complete the packet of antibiotics. It seemed to work, but left him feeling drained and listless. He could now add a persistent, irritating cough to the gastrointestinal upset that had never really left him.

A month later, as autumn was beginning to lower its way into winter, he was ill again, this time with tonsillitis. He had to repeat his trick with the bouncy ball in the chemist's, and, although he left with three packets of Penicillin this time, he felt miserable and guilty rather than triumphant.

The weather was getting colder, and with it, the spectre of the Creature returned. It was harder to keep it away when he felt so listless, and there were some days where he couldn't bring himself to do anything but lie on his bed staring up at the tent's seam, not even the pattern of the canvas properly visible in the gloom. These days were so unspeakably vile; a foggy morass of emptiness, misery and crushing _boredom_, where he felt that nothing in life could possibly have any meaningful purpose, that dread of them forced him into an almost neurotic paroxysm of activity, whether it be exploring further-flung hills, or spying on the farmer's wife as she went about her business (been promoted in her office job; thinking of leaving he husband). Physical exhaustion kept it at bay, and he could manage that.

By the time Autumn turned into winter, his hands were hard and calloused - he could identify the activities which led to each hardened patch of skin - and he was as thin as a lath, brown as a nut, with a physique like whipcord.

It was a harsh winter - one of the worst he'd ever known. He had only seen snow in the British winter once or twice in his life, but, up here above the snow line, he realised how formidable it could be. There were many different types; thin, powdery stuff that swirled like icing sugar in the cold air; hard and crunchy, like coarse sand underfoot and sometimes thick and blanketing; cutting off sound and making the rest of the world seem impossibly distant.

It was desperately cold in The Hay Wain. He took to sleeping with a small bottle of water each night, as the rest of his supply froze solid. He had helped himself to several armfuls of hay from the barn to sleep on, with layers of newspaper (which he still didn't read) under and over it, yet the iron chill of the ground still leached into his very bones on some nights.

He noticed that he needed to eat more and more food, to allow his body to continue producing warmth – some mornings he frightened himself, by awaking so sluggish and stiff that he felt he was beginning to shut down. These were some of the lowest points of all. He would have to force his numb limbs to move, and shovel whatever tasteless, high-energy food he had scavenged, down his throat. Eating began to seem like another dreary chore, as the cold would overshadow the hunger, giving no joy to the task of refueling. Sometimes, his aversion grew so strong, he would retch even at the smell of food.

Despite his efforts, he continued to lose weight, until he had reached that stage of near-emaciation where he began to feel serenely and pleasantly detached from his body; disinterested in its state. He spent much of the day feeling as if he were floating slightly outside himself. It was only the pain of the cold penetrating his bones that would jog his mind into eating at all; that and the knowledge that if he became too skeletal the kind librarian who now smiled in welcome to him every other Saturday may become suspicious, and he shuddered at the thought of having nothing to read.

Then came the time when the snow lay thick upon the ground for two weeks. The very air held a muted quality, and the cold was almost palpable. He began to have to acknowledge a creeping, insidious fear that he would be unable to survive here on his own much longer. His feet sank almost to the tops of his wellington boots, and the snow clung tenaciously with every step, softly sapping his strength. Added to the fact that he daren't take the most direct route down the hillside for fear that his tracks would be followed, and that his body demanded that he eat ravenously to stay warm, starvation began to seem a very real, looming prospect. He lost his disinterest in food, and began to be obsessed by it; re-reading passages that described food in his novels, thinking constantly about what he would eat if he could have anything in the world. His supplies dwindled, then, they were gone.

Just as he hovered upon the cusp of throwing himself upon the mercy of the farmer and his (still present for now) wife, the weather changed, becoming typically gloomy rather than freezing, and a sullen, driving rain washed away the snow within twenty-four hours.

The rain showed no signs of abating, but Sherlock was not about to wait for his opportunity to scavenge some food, and as soon as the snow was no more than patches of sodden slush, he began sliding his way down the hill, head forward and eyes scrunched against the driving rain, and some more plastic salvaged from the barn wrapped around himself in a bid to stay at least partially dry. His feet would frequently almost float out from under him, and he fell hard on several occasions, but he ignored the bruises, and kept ploughing relentlessly on. Despite the plastic, he was drenched by the time he reached the town, his hands so cold he could scarcely manage the padlocks on the supermarket bins.

The bins were almost empty. The cold weather must have meant people had stockpiled more than usual, and deliveries had not made it along poorly gritted roads. All he could find to eat were some squashed boxes of Weetabix, which he stuffed into his mouth, trying hard not to choke on the dryness, and quietly sobbing with exhaustion, cold and disappointment.

He didn't know what to do.

After he had managed to swallow four Weetabix biscuits, he began to feel a little stronger, and to recognise that he was dangerously cold and wet. Survival instinct began to conquer self pity, and he started to consider where he might be able to get warm.

Heart beating, he approached the goods entrance of the supermarket, and inspected the warehouse doors.

The lock was entirely inadequate, really. They must have a very low crime rate here.

Inside, it wasn't much warmer than outside, but there was no wind nor drizzle. And then he struck gold – the outlet from the freezer aisles was here, and sending out a constant stream of warm, stuffy air. Almost moaning with the relief from the incessant, gnawing cold, he dragged a wooden pallet over to the spot, and covered it with old cardboard boxes. He could hardly believe his luck when his torch beam alighted on a shelf stocked with tartan travel blankets. He snatched them down with trembling hands.

It was only then that he realised he was literally _surrounded_ by food. He stood, shaking his head slightly, unable to understand how he had not absorbed this fact before. It must have been the act of stealing the travel blankets that had allowed him to somehow process this possibility.

Shakily, he swung the torch around, and then was almost overtaken by excitement at the sight of a small staff rest area complete with an electric kettle. Desperately, he ran from shelf to shelf, snatching at everything that took his fancy, like a fox in a chicken coop, overcome with over-abundance. Hot chocolate! Packet oxtail soup! Pot Noodles (forbidden pleasures in an almost forgotten life)! Warmth, warmth to wrap his numb hands around, warmth to line his aching belly, warmth to snuggle up under and be surrounded by!

As he lay, lightly buffeted by warm air, in his almost-dry underwear, on and under soft woollen blankets, hands clutched around a mug of hot chocolate, whilst his wet things gently steamed overhead, he realised that he was both blissfully content and shedding tedious tears again. He ruthlessly ignored this strange dichotomy playing out in his own head, and concentrated instead on the sensations – the lovely warmth, the soft fabric which felt wonderful stroking against his naked skin every time he moved.

He was too comfortable to even clean his teeth in the staff toilet, despite the fact he had never missed doing it in the Hay Wain. He simply put down the mug, curled up, and allowed himself to sleep.

He awoke with a jolt several hours later, and realised with a jolt of terror that what had woken him was the grating of the warehouse door opening and bleary male voices chattering away to each other, then the blinding glow of the sickly strip lights flickering on. How stupid could he be? He had slept until the staff arrived to open the store!

Horror-struck, he leapt to his feet, grabbing at his clothes and bag, and hoping against hope that he could melt away before they spotted his little nest. Hiding, shuddering, behind tall shelves, he pulled on socks, salopets and wellies at lightning speed, shouldered his rucksack, which thankfully he had stuffed full of food the night before, and crept towards the exit.

He was breathing hard, and noticed in dismay that they had closed the doors behind them. Opening them would make an awful noise in the quiet of early morning. Just then, he heard a yell – one of the employees must have found his bed!

"Oi, Gethin! Some tosser's been sleeping in here! He's nicked a load a blankets to sleep under!"

"What? _Nevi Wen_, I _told _you I'd locked the door last night! I _thought _it was wrong it was open."

"D'you think he's still in here?"

"Well, I dunno! Best look for the bugger!"

Panicked, Sherlock, darted for the door, hauled it open, and bolted.

He heard another yell behind him, and the sound of running footsteps.

"OI! Get back here!"

Oh God, they'd seen him. He hurtled across the back yard and into the car park with all the speed he could muster.

They were following him. The rucksack was slowing him down, but he _couldn't _lose it, he just couldn't! He might have to. He risked a look back over his shoulder, and saw two long-legged boys in their late teens gaining on him. Panting, he scrambled up the wall around the car park, then threw himself over the fence surrounding it, aiming for the area of town where he knew numerous quaint small roads intersected.

His chest was heaving as he pounded down the still-dark, still-quiet morning streets. He ignored the gathering pain and kept going, and by the time he stopped, he realised that the sounds of pursuit had died away long ago.

His legs would barely hold him as he started back up the hill.

He would continue to castigate himself for days afterwards, blaming his near capture on his self-indulgence, and sternly promising himself such weakness would not occur again. He did not dare venture into town again for a week afterwards.

Sherlock never again allowed himself the luxury of sleeping the in warehouse. Instead, he formed a new strategy of conserving warmth on his trips. It consisted of hiding in plain sight. He started heading into town on Saturdays, hiding his warm layers in a handy recess behind a garden shed on his way in, and wearing his most respectable clothes. He would then sit in the library all day reading. He told the librarian it was quieter than home, that he was the eldest of six brothers and sisters, that he never got the peace and quiet to read there on a weekend when his Mum was at work. He carefully remembered every lie he told.

He would leave at closing time, then go and retrieve his rucksack. It was not a long wait until the supermarket closed and the staff headed home. He would then unlock the padlocks under cover of the early winter darkness, keeping a careful ear out for pedestrians. This new strategy meant he had to hide more often than when he picked up his supplies in the middle of the night, but he could usually hear people coming, and it wasn't a busy route.

He would then carefully manoeuver himself away from the supermarket, and stroll confidently down the street, holding a new library book under his arm. He started to regret all his exhausting midnight trips, as this was so much simpler. No-one questioned his presence at all now.

After three weeks of this, his life was starting to regain some rhythm. On his next trip, he found the library closed, and he suddenly realised with a jolt that it was Christmas Day. Oh, he'd noticed the lights and decorations peripherally, of course, but some of them had been up since October, and it seemed part of his mind had determinedly filtered them out. Now he knew why. There was an aching hollow in his chest, and a longing to be _home_ that he hadn't felt since his most severe illness. He tried to sneer, to pretend he was above such things, but instead, the longing intensified, growing, details unfurling and begetting one another, until the complexity of _wanting_ almost stole his ability to breath.

He wanted to be back in the time before Mum became ill.

He wanted to be _properly_ warm and dry and clean.

He wanted to smell the gorgeous scent of Christmas tree.

He wanted a Christmas morning cuddle from his Mum.

He wanted to wake up with the crinkling of a full stocking lying over his knees, and he wanted he and Mycroft to delve to the bottom of theirs together, and then he wanted the anticipation of opening colourful, enticingly wrapped presents, only half of which he had guessed the contents of, after a proper hot dinner.

He wanted to _eat_ a proper hot dinner at a proper table with Mum and Mycroft and Grandmere and Dad and….

There his mind stuttered to a halt, and the colourful memories shattered and became jarring.

Uncle Avery had always been at the Christmas dinners.

He had opened the fascinating crinkling stocking in the bed where his Uncle had…

He felt faint. Then he felt sharp with survival instinct again. What was he _doing_? A child out on his own on Christmas Day? Was he _asking_ to be caught?

For a moment, he almost wondered.

Then he slunk into the shadows and headed towards the Co-ops' bins.

At least pickings would be good.

He was ill again after Christmas. Just a cold, he supposed, but the cough and breathlessness got worse again, and he felt hot, cold, achy, shivery, and he was sick several times. He could manage. He almost didn't think about his Mum holding a basin for him and stroking his hair.

The first time he ventured back into town after his illness, there had been another cold snap, and walking into the library and feeling proper warmth again made him feel off kilter; just another little test of his resolve.

The librarian, Mrs Elis, smiled at him as he walked in.

"Hello, David, _Cariad_, how are you this week?" (Sherlock had chosen the Patron Saint of his adoptive country as his alias for his library card). Mrs Elis was youngish and quite pretty, with a warm smile and a thick Welsh accent, peppered with Welsh words, and the small interactions Sherlock had with her sometimes felt like his last connection to a lost world. He smiled and answered politely, then his eyes fell on the calendar on the desk.

It was his eleventh birthday.

Again, he felt that punch of loneliness, and he found himself smiling more broadly and telling her so.

"Oh, _Penblwydd Hapus_, Happy Birthday!" She trilled at him, with a big grin. "Are you doing anything nice, _Cariad_?"

Sherlock suddenly found himself telling her all about the party he would be having tomorrow, and the presents he had got this morning, and how he was having steak, his favourite, for dinner, and a cake with the Hero Turtles on it. The strange thing was, he had no idea why. He was always friendly with Mrs Elis, but never this loquacious.

Then he noticed a look of puzzlement as she drew out his library card, and he realised with a jolt of fear that he had given an entirely different date of birth.

"Looks like we have the wrong date for you here then. _Edrych, s_ays your birthday's in June."

He managed, somehow, to keep his face calm.

"Oh yes, silly me, I must have filled the form in wrong." He smiled at her innocently, and breathed a sigh of relief as she didn't show any signs of suspicion.

He fiercely cursed himself for another stupid lapse as he sat in his usual corner. He really must learn to stop indulging these silly wants.

His resolution to leave such childish behaviour behind him lasted until he got back to The Hay Wain later that night, and drew out the chocolate he had been lucky enough to find – left over Christmas selection packs, crushed until not even presentable enough for the post-Christmas sales. As he unwrapped a bar and took a bite, he found himself closing his eyes and pushing his surroundings to one side.

He was absently singing to himself.

"Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me…"

-oOo-

_Anyone else want to join the queue to give him a hug?_

_ Please read and review! Thanks so much for all of you who keep on doing so, despite my infrequent updates. It always inspires me to get going again._


	23. Chapter 23: Best Foot Forward

**Chapter 23**

**Best Foot Forward**

Life goes on, Sherlock told himself, as he faced the walk down to town. Stiff upper lip, pull your socks up, shoulders back, worse things happen at sea, I want doesn't get, no point crying over spilt milk, best foot forward, count your blessings.

Recently, determinedly reciting clichés to himself was his method of attempting to find a kernel of cheer in his situation. There was a sort of bitter humour in it, he supposed, playing his own authority figure to chivvy himself along. But, oh, he didn't want to face that walk. It was freezing and sleeting, and such a long way when he was so tired.

He made himself go, though, even if his supplies were relatively well topped up. The library was enough of a lure in itself, or it was if he told himself it was. He just wished it were _nearer_.

He was starting to worry himself with his lassitude now. It was more than chafing against the gruelling routine of his day to day life. It was a constant, physical, dragging sensation. His cough was worse again, and he thought he was having temperatures at night. The recent one year anniversary of his running away had thrown his future into stark relief, and he felt so depressed at the thought of it - he had managed one year. He would need to manage another five if he wanted to re-enter society and not risk being handed back to Avery.

It was a miserable small boy who trudged down the hillside. His legs started to wobble half way down. He sat and ate a piece of chocolate, somewhat surprised - it was usually coming back that was the biggest ordeal.

He felt wobbly all over when he arrived in town. He was a little puzzled by the black spots that kept dancing in front of his eyes, and the tingling in his fingers. He'd grown used to the cough, but each bout took it out of him more. He should probably take some more Penicillin when he got back tonight. His hand was shaking as he pushed open the door to the library.

He was focussing on trying to appear normal as he spoke to Mrs Elis, so it wasn't until he sat down that it occurred to him that she had seemed rather... off. Puzzled, he leant back in his chair, resting his mouth against his steepled fingers. She'd seemed _nervous_. Come to think of it, she hadn't seemed her normal self last week either, and the week before that she'd been worried about his cough. Was that significant? Frustratedly, he rubbed at his eyes again - they still weren't cooperating; the page he was trying to read was swimming, and the black blotches kept floating in and out - no wonder he couldn't concentrate.

With a huff of irritation, he got up to go to the loo. He moaned with pleasure at the sensation of the warm water on his hands, and took a few damp paper towels into the cubicle with him, because getting clean here was a lot pleasanter than in the freezing Hay Wain.

When he was finished, he stood up to leave, then felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He shook his head to try to clear it, but that only made him stagger slightly, and a dull hammering of pain started behind his temples. He tried to take deep breaths to centre himself, but there was pain there too, sharp under his ribs as he drew his chest in.

Perhaps sitting back down in his quiet corner would help.

He pushed open the door to the men's toilets, and then his heart stopped.

He could see the reception desk from here; the toilets were on a mezzanine level, so he was looking down at them. Two policemen were stood there, in conversation with Mrs Elis. They were leaning in towards each other; talking earnestly. Mrs Elis's shoulders were tense. Not a social call then.

He closed the door all but a crack, and continued watching them.

Mrs Elis gestured towards the stair case. She was pointing to where his usual peaceful spot was, although her line of site was blocked. She got up, starting to accompany them.

For a moment, lurching fear blocked out his thoughts. Then his brain started working again - he had to get out!

There was an open window in the toilets. He had to climb on the cistern to reach it. He wriggled through, holding on with his fingers as he found the sill with his toes. He was quite high up, but he was over the concrete yard behind the library, empty apart from the rubbish bins, and rancid with weeds - no one would see him for a moment.

Carefully, he edged along the sill, still hanging on to the edge of the window with one hand. He reached out and shook the drain pipe. Rusty metal - should just about bear his weight.

His rough little hands were slippery with sweat. He rubbed them on his jeans, then tried to get a good grip. He leaned out, and, feet planted either side of the pipe, started walking down the wall.

Half way down, he fell. Winded, he lay on the hard ground for a moment, realising there was blood on his face. He put his hand to a pain on his forehead, and it came away wet. His nose was bleeding too, and as he sat up, it became a steady splatter.

He tried to clamber to his feet, and fell again. He was so dizzy now, he could barely prop himself upright. Then he heard something that sharpened all his wavering senses. A voice in the room above him.

"David, boyo? Are you in there? Come on, sunshine, open the door. We just want to speak with you."

Male voice. "We", not "I" - if there had been any doubt it was the policemen, and they wanted him, there was none now.

Holding himself up against the wall, he forced his feet to carry him. Out of the yard. Around the back of the terraced houses. Through the old castle walks alleyway. Past the shed, grab his rucksack. The weight of it pulled him sideways to his knees. Back up, hand bleeding, never mind.

Keep behind the hedgerow following the narrow road out of town. Cut across the field. Then up, between patches of scrub, where clumps of bracken or bushes or trees could hide him.

He wasn't going to think about it yet. Not now. The blood was dry and stiff on his face; he could smell iron, taste copper. His jumper was soggy with it. There were tears pouring down his cheeks - he wasn't crying, but they wouldn't seem to stop. He was wet, all over, but it wasn't raining any longer – sweat, then. So much of it.

He wasn't going to think about having to start everything all over again, because he'd have to, of course. For now, he just had to think about putting one foot in front of another, and that was proving very difficult. The ground was sodden and slippery, and he kept falling over. Each time, it got harder and harder to get up again. The mud was sucking at his feet, and he felt weak all over. Drained.

Half way up, he emptied everything except his torch out of his rucksack. It was too heavy, and he'd need it to pack up the Hay... no, he wasn't going to think about that yet. He had to get there first.

He had fallen again. His chest felt strange. Hurt a lot. Couldn't drag in the air he needed. Bubbling feeling inside it when he tried, and that sharp, sharp pain. Wet outside, wet inside too. Couldn't get up again.

He started to crawl.

It was getting dark. It was raining again. Upright again. Stagger forward. Fall. Crawl. Stand. Stagger. Fall. Repeat. A ghastly syncopated parody of a dance.

There was the Hay Wain, its dark shape closer, then further away, then inexplicably his hand was at the door. He had to pack up. Had to move. It was all ruined.

He lurched towards the guy ropes, tugged with numb useless hands at the knots. Fell again.

He found himself crawling toward his bed. There was no harm in lying down for a while, was there? Just for a little while.

Coughing again. It felt weak. His chest was crushing him.

He was sick; it was thin and bilious. He couldn't even turn his head away.

Somewhere, from a long, long way off, a little voice was telling him he was very, very ill.

He closed his eyes._ Wake up, wake up, you're _dying, screamed the voice, tiny, further away than ever.

"I know", he whispered.

Then nothing.

-oOo-

_Sherlock's trip back to the Hay Wain is how I feel about writing it sometimes! But it's still staggering along getting nearer its destination. Please do give it a lift!_

_ Once again, thanks for all your lovely reviews and comments._


	24. Chapter 24: The Hospital Doors

**Chapter 24**

**The Hospital Doors**

It was odd, waking up.

As he came to, he was aware that the background noises had sunk into his subconscious, so that, when his forebrain actually noticed them, they were already familiar.

_Hospital_, translated his cerebral cortex, and he actually had to work the steps backwards to know how he had arrived at that conclusion; smell of detergent, the steady beeping of a monitor, the hard shiny quality to the cotton sheets and the squeaky sensation of a foam rubber mattress, plus the echoing of corridors, and a soft cacophony of voices and other children in the distance.

It occurred to him to wonder how he got here, but he wasn't awake enough to carry the thought any further forwards before drifting back off again.

The next time he awoke, he was far more lucid, and a sense of acute unease pursued him from sleep. It had caught up with him before he had had time to open his eyes, so he kept them closed and listened.

He deduced he was in a side room. The door was ajar, leading to the main ward.

There was something in his side. Surreptitiously, he examined it under the blankets. Some kind of tubing, firm plastic, leading off the bed towards the floor. It seemed to go right inside his chest, secured in place with a fabric dressing. Some kind of drainage system? Or were they putting something in?

There was something in the back of his hand, too. A drip - he'd had one of those before, after he broke his arm. Something else wrapped around his head, and actually sticking up his nose - he could feel a draft blowing up his nostrils. A rubbery plastic clip thing was attached to his finger. There were fragments of memory, of being awake, of all this happening, but it all seemed disjointed, as if it had happened to somebody else.

There was someone in the room with him. A man - he could tell by the breathing. He was reading a book. A paperback, said the sounds of his fingertips as he turned the pages.

Carefully, oh so carefully, Sherlock opened his eyes the tiniest crack. He could see the red light glowing from the clip on his finger. He confirmed to himself that this was a side room on the children's ward - pictures of Winnie-the-Pooh and Sonic the Hedgehog on the walls. He squinted through the gap of the door, and made sure he knew where the green exit signs were on the wall opposite.

Peeking at the man beside him took even more caution. He shifted into position first, sighing gently. Only when he heard the pages of the book start turning at regular intervals again did he risk a look. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief. The man was both a stranger, yet oddly familiar.

Slowly, he flexed all his limbs, and determined that they seemed to be working.

More splintered fragments of memory were coming back to him now. The Hay Wain. Struggling to get there, then collapsing. Voices calling. Being lifted, carried. Scraps of being in an ambulance, hearing its siren, seeing its blue lights through the skylight. More voices. Colours. Impressions. All swimming together, robbing him of his notion of the passage of time. The man on the chair had been there for a lot of it. He'd been at the Hay Wain, he was sure. That would explain the feeling of familiarity.

He was a nice man. He had obviously brought Aramis along. The stuffed spaniel was next to his cheek.

Tentatively, Sherlock opened his eyes fully. It was a few moments before the man looked up, so Sherlock studied him in the meantime. He wore baggy grey trousers, the sort his teachers would have worn, and his suede desert boot rested against his knee - the soles were worn down, suggesting a lot of walking, but scuffed where they would rest against his desk chair. Dark green shirt, sort of fashionable, he thought, although did look like work gear, slightly rumpled as if he had slept in it. The sleeves were rolled up, showing the kind of tan that denoted someone who spent time outside, but covered up. Brown hair in a short, functional style. He was young, in his early twenties probably. Calluses from writing on middle finger, otherwise soft hands. Smoker. Nail biter; stressful job? Reading a Dick Francis novel, suggested conservative tastes with a penchant for escapism of the action adventure variety. Not a doctor, he thought. Policeman?

Fear trickled into his stomach at the thought.

The man looked up, and smiled. It was a pleasant smile, friendly and gentle.

"Hello, sunshine. Awake at last."

_Obviously_. "Yes. Hello. You brought me here." His voice sounded strange; rusty and dry. Of course, he spoke to himself often, but he had noticed with Mrs Elis that it sounded different when he had the rare opportunity to speak with another person.

"True. Surprised you remember actually. You really weren't well."

"You're a policeman?"

"You're quick, aren't you? That's right. How'd you guess?"

"I didn't guess, I worked it out." _Distract him, buy time, see what he _knows. "I'm David", Sherlock said quickly, feeling his knees beginning to tremble under the bedclothes. _They don't know who you are. They're worried, but remember they don't know who you are. Just keep calm, don't tell them anything. You can do this!_ "What happened to me?"

"You got a very nasty chest infection. There's fluid on your lung; that's why you have a tube in your chest, to help drain it away. They're giving you medicine to treat it."

"Oh, I see." They were dancing around the elephant in the room. Sherlock felt the tension coil in his abdomen. The man was being deliberately bland, and something about his demeanour made Sherlock want to blurt out a confession.

"You arrived here last night. They took you to put your drain in straight away. They were going to take you to intensive care, but you seemed to improve quite quickly. You've been pretty much asleep since then."

_He's still not mentioning me being out on my own. Not mentioning The Hay Wain. When's he going to mention it?_ Sherlock could feel sweat starting to prickle under his arms and on his forehead. He regarded the officer warily. The man smiled back at him. He had an ID badge clipped to his trousers.

"DC Lestrade", he read out loud. "My Grandmere has a neighbour called Lestrade. In France. Are you French?"

He was babbling like an imbecile, but he wanted to keep Lestrade off the point. For some reason, it seemed really important. Oh, God, though, he shouldn't be giving away private details about himself!

"A quarter French", the man was replying. "Just like you."

Sherlock froze in the bed. _How did he know that? Oh, right, you said "Grandmere". Maybe he just assumed._

Frightened now, he blurted "I need the toilet! Am I allowed to go?"

"I think they have bottles for you; they want you to stay here for the most part."

"No, a bottle's no good." He was scrabbling upright in bed now, ignoring the sharp pain and the dizziness the movement caused. "I really, really need to go! Please, get someone so I can go!" Suddenly, getting out of the room, examining his prison, seemed overwhelmingly important. He was aware tears had sprung to his eyes; they were helpful, but not an act.

"OK, OK, sunshine. I'll get someone, don't worry."

Obviously, a crying child on the verge of soiling himself was enough to rattle the man's composure a little. Sherlock felt a little better.

A nurse came in. She was young, dark haired and pretty, with a strong Welsh accent. One look at her was enough to take her measure and decide on the best course to take, and, when she tried to make him use a bedpan or commode, he turned on the tears, and begged her to wheel him to a "proper toilet". When she pointed out that he was attached to the bed by his drain and oxygen cannulae, he pointed out that he would be OK without extra oxygen for a few minutes, and that the drain bucket could detach - he leant down, and started to do the straps himself. She acquiesced quickly.

He felt a little calmer as they wheeled him down the corridor towards the toilets. He memorised the layout of the ward. There was a door at one end, and one leading to a fire escape at the other.

They offered to help him with the toilet, but he declined, suddenly embarrassed, an unaccustomed sensation after so long alone.

When he finished, the pretty nurse was waiting to wheel him back to his room. As they passed the nurses' station, one of the younger nurses went to answer the intercom that allowed relatives to buzz in through the locked ward doors.

"Mair", she called to one of the older nurses, "there's a man outside says he's Will Holmes's guardian. Is he allowed in, there's something funny going on there isn't there?"

Sherlock's stomach clenched with terror, then he was out of the chair and running for the fire exit. His nurse was too startled to stop him for a moment.

Adrenaline got him to the door, then he was slamming down the push bar to open it and racing out onto the fire escape it led to. He barely noticed he was suddenly soaked, and he couldn't really breath, but somehow he forced his legs to hold him upright as he started down the iron steps. There was no thought in his mind beyond _get away get away_, never mind that he was wearing only two hospital gowns, never mind that the sharp rusty metal was cutting into his bare feet, never mind that there was a plastic drain sticking out of his side, never mind that his equipment was gone. Just _get away_.

There were shouts behind him. He ignored them, carried on going.

The door on the floor below him on the fire escape banged open, and a burly nurse stood in his path. Spinning around, he saw DC Lestrade walking towards him from the others direction, arm outstretched. He was saying something, but Sherlock couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

He was trapped! His was still two floors up. The nurse from below was advancing on him from one direction, Lestrade from the other.

Desperately, he looked around him. The world seemed to slow. They were almost close enough to grab him now.

Sherlock scrabbled up onto the railings.

Then jumped.

-oOo-

_Hello again, everybody! I can't keep on apologising and then not delivering the goods without losing some impact, so maybe I'll just say I'll update when I can! Thanks so much for your ongoing reviews – they really do keep this story ticking over in my head, and I do appreciate you continuing to follow me. I can promise you one more chapter fairly soon after this one fairly safely, I think._


	25. Chapter 25: Detective Work

**Chapter 25**

**Detective Work**

"I was only a DC at the time", Lestrade was saying. "Very green, one of my first ever cases, certainly the biggest. First I knew about anything was that a ten year old boy had gone missing from a village on our patch. Kid's name was William Holmes, usually known as Will."

John looked anxiously towards his flatmate, having made a not terribly difficult deduction about who Will must be. Lestrade paused, briefly, then continued, speaking in a stilted voice, as if conducting a team briefing rather than recounting a story to friends. It was probably out of consideration for his audience.

"When we got to the house, the kid's uncle was there. He was _in loco parentis,_ had been for a few months, because Will's Mum was severely ill in hospital and couldn't come home, and his Dad had walked out on them." he waited, cautiously, as if seeking permission for the statement to stand, and was answered with a curt nod.

"Avery Holmes, he called himself. Came across as a really nice bloke when you first met him, worried sick, obviously.

"I still don't know to this day what put me off about him. Perhaps he seemed too interested in police proceedings, perhaps he was a bit too keen to know what aspects we were looking at, like a guilty conscience. He set my teeth on edge talking about 'good hidings' and things, like he was daring us to disapprove. I felt like he was trying to distract us."

"Facts, please. Not feelings nor vague intuitions," came a grunt from the sofa, but it lacked bite.

"Facts, yeah. Well, essentially, the uncle said he and the kid had had a bit of a ding-dong the night before, he'd doled out his 'good hiding' - god, sounds bizarre that that was considered acceptable in this day and age, doesn't it? Anyway, he said he and Will had made it up. Then he'd overslept the next day, and Will was gone. He assumed he'd just taken himself off to school, as he normally walked there on his own.

"He told us he went to pick him up from school later that day, 'cause he felt a bit bad about the night before, then realised that he hadn't been there all day. He and the teachers asked around a bit for him, but there was no sign of him. He went and checked at home - still nothing. He checked with Will's older brother, who was at Uni, and hadn't been home for a while, to check he hadn't heard anything. He hadn't, so he called the brother home, then called the police. We got called in as CID shortly after."

Here, Lestrade paused.

"That was the story so far. Will just seemed to have vanished. His Uncle didn't think there was anything particular missing from the house. We started organising a local search..."

"...after the local force, in enthusiastic but unhelpful style, had raised a hue and cry, getting a lot of the village busybodies to start searching, and trampling over everything," cut in Sherlock, with a vestige of his customary relish.

"Yes, after a good old cock-up to start things off, we got the dogs in, tried to organise things a little better, but there was still no sign.

"While this was going on, the older brother came back."

"Mycroft", said Sherlock, quietly. John's jaw started to grind, as the acknowledgement became open rather than tacit.

"Yes, Mycroft. Not much more than a kid himself, but pretty formidable, as you can imagine. Did the same deducing trick we know and love, and it was very plain, very quickly, that he was massively observant and intelligent, although sometimes he was clearly just a scared kid. I thought it was obvious that he didn't trust Avery either, but I don't think he was ready to tell us anything at that point.

"Anyway, we organised a press conference, which Avery and Mycroft spoke at, to publicise things. I don't know if we were holding out much hope, and most of the calls we got to the hotline turned out to be rubbish. And there were one hell of a lot of them.

"There was one call, though. An elderly guy who ran some nearby allotments. I interviewed him myself - he was adamant he'd seen the kid recently, and he seemed the perfect witness - clear, no exaggeration or confabulation. Said that Will had been asking about one of the plots. Remembered which plot it was, because he'd noticed the owner spent hours in his shed, but didn't seem to do much actual gardening. Asked about some very unremarkable cabbages, apparently. What struck him was that he recognised the owner of the plot as the Uncle from the press appeal. Never forgot a face, he said.

"It didn't sound like much, and I think the DI was inclined to stick it on the back burner, assumed it was mistaken identity, but I checked the name and address on the plot, and realised it didn't check out as a real address. I think Inspector Atkins was still a bit underwhelmed, but agreed to look into it. At that point, I was due a day of leave, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the allotment was more important than Atkins gave it credit for. I volunteered I'd stake out the place myself, and the boss agreed - I think he was humouring me. We didn't think it was likely to be overly dangerous, which seems a bit mad in retrospect, but anyway, I sat there on my own with my coffee, sandwiches and a paper, feeling like a proper detective.

"I think I was pretty shocked myself, to be honest, when Avery showed up. He let himself into the shed, and I sat there and debated a bit what I should do. I didn't want to radio for back up if it turned out he just came here for a bit of peace and quiet, but it seemed a very weird thing to do.

"Then I saw young Mycroft come puffing up the path, looking bright red in the face, and really shifty. I'd been inclined to trust him, although I did get the feeling he wasn't telling us everything that was on his mind. Point was, I was really impressed by his brain, and thought I'd watch him, see what he was up to.

"He crept up to the shed, obviously not wanting to be seen, and went and tried to look through the window..."

"Thus proving why he doesn't do his own leg work" muttered Sherlock, darkly.

Lestrade was wringing his hands now, obviously working up to a difficult part of his story, and the interruption seemed to throw him a bit.

"Yes, right. The window. Yeah, he looked through it. Then went up to the door, and barged in suddenly. I opened the car door, in case there was trouble, and I heard him scream out 'no no!'"

Sherlock had drawn his knees up to his chest and was clinging onto his hair with both hands, scowling straight ahead of him. John, on an impulse, put an arm on his friend's back, and felt the fast breathing ease slightly, and the fevered body move almost imperceptibly closer. Lestrade's voice continued, but there was the slightest hoarse edge to it.

"I started running. Lost my head a bit, didn't even think about calling for help. I saw Avery look out of the door - I think he must have heard me coming - it was a gravel path between the plots - he took one look at me, and started running for the hills. I sort of started to run after him, then remembered Mycroft, and went to check on him.

"I found him out cold on the floor, blood all over his face - he looked terrible, and I went to check he was still breathing. There was a lot of blood, but he was starting to come around."

There was a long pause.

"There were photographs", croaked Sherlock. "You saw the photographs."

Lestrade nodded, looking sick at the memory.

"They were pictures of... of Will. And Avery, although his face wasn't in them. Will was... being abused in the pictures. They were awful, and that's what that bastard had left open for Mycroft to see when he walked into the shed. He must have heard or seen him at the window, and known he was caught. He stood behind the kid when he walked in, and knocked him over the head when he was distracted by the pictures. I'm not sure what he planned to do next - probably hadn't got that far ahead, although it was lucky that I was there or he could have panicked and killed him.

"I ran and radioed for help. Mycroft was waking up, and I know you don't always get on with your brother now, mate, but he was distraught. Absolutely inconsolable. I'd put a glove on and closed the file, but he insisted on snatching it back and looking, before I managed to take it away again, and he couldn't stop crying - could hardly speak. I just held on to him while we waited for help to arrive.

"There was a film on the side. He'd been putting developing fluids together. He had actually been going to develop the evidence of his abuse whilst his victim was missing - I mean, can you even imagine?"

"I don't have to", came a whisper from the vicinity of John's shoulder. John tightened his grip.

Sherlock's head was swimming. He was almost intolerably nauseous. He'd assumed he could get through the retelling of this story, but it was so _hard_, hearing the horrendous ordeal of his childhood rehashed, trying to banish the irrational shame that anyone should know about it. A part of him had been waiting for John to recoil in disgust. Then, when the arm tightened around his shoulders, he felt inexpressible _relief_. It was what he would have expected from his friend, or from any reasonable person really. Sympathy, not condemnation. Didn't mean he had to like him knowing, though. Damn Anderson. _Damn_ him for raking up this horrid, sordid piece of history.

"Avery abused me regularly for months. It started with physical abuse - basic beatings, and limb traction - very effective and painful, with the added advantage that it didn't leave marks. Having said that, he liked to leave marks too. It excited him, and he began following up punishments with little visits to my room at night, which escalated as he became more confident. He took photographic evidence of all his visits, although I didn't realise that at the time - I tended to shut my eyes." He spoke crisply, unemotionally, just recounting the facts, trying to ignore the remembered lurch of terror at the tread of his Uncle's feet upon the stairs.

"Jesus, mate. I'm... I'm just... so sorry. That's awful; really, _really_ awful." John was pale. He tended to be at his least articulate when he was stressed. John had seen war, and sickness, and no doubt the worst side of humanity, yet he was clearly shaken. _Sentimentality. Amplified because he is my friend._

"Please continue, Lestrade."

The inspector had to clear his throat before he commenced speaking again.

"The local boys and an ambulance turned up pretty quickly, and we got Mycroft to hospital. CID and specialist teams were onto it later, and there was an immediate call put out for Avery. There was never a full scale man hunt though. You could say we were too late."

-oOo-

_Thanks for the reviews, everyone. New chapter on the way very soon!_


	26. Chapter 26: All Fall Down

**Chapter 26**

**All Fall Down**

"He didn't get away, did he?" asked John, looking around as if expecting the man to come back into the room.

Lestrade smiled grimly. "Yes and no. An hour or two later, the news came through that a man had thrown himself over into the nearby quarry."

"Deep Dene", said Sherlock. "We used to climb it together, before everything went wrong. He had all the hallmarks of being a wonderful Uncle, Avery, apart from being a monster. Long way down. Pretty efficient way of doing the job."

He felt John tense again, and had the sudden urge to apologise, but settled on leaning in slightly to the one armed hug instead. He glanced up at Lestrade – the man was hunched forward in his chair, elbows on knees, playing with his fingernails. Sherlock cleared his throat, and he gave a little start, then continued speaking, looking into the distance.

"He'd left a note. Avery Holmes. In his pocket, apologising for what he'd done, saying he knew it was unforgiveable, etc etc. The unexpected thing was, he confessed everything else, but said he hadn't had anything to do with the disappearance. He said he was as frightened for his nephew as anyone else. So Avery's belief was he'd run away, on his own. He begged us to _find Will_, and keep him safe."

"He _cared_ about me. How touching," spat Sherlock.

"Of course, we then had the issue of all the other photographs in the shed. We'd started out with a missing child, and ended up with a paedophile ring. A lot of the photos in Avery's books were Polaroids, so there had to be some sharing of information. We also had to wonder if one of his _friends_ had had some involvement in Will's disappearance. Either way, it didn't make us less worried.

"Then, of course, we had to keep things quiet. We didn't want to spook any of the other bastards in the ring, so press coverage was completely suppressed. Actually, as things turned out, one of the children in the photographs was recognisable as another missing person, and gave us an in. Bit of a dominoes effect from there - the ring was broken up about seven months later. You'd have heard a bit about it in the news, but the evidence trickled out so slowly, it never made one big splash, as even the gutter press had the decency or self preservation not to mess up the investigations while they were still potentially ongoing, and some of the kids were older and giving evidence – they were protected.

"The long and the short of it was, the publicity surrounding Will Holmes' disappearance petered out. Most of the guys on the case tended to think the poor kid was dead, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was still alive out there somewhere. I'd talked a lot with Mycroft, see, and he obviously completely believed in him still being alive and in hiding, and when you deal with one Holmes brother, anything seems possible. OK, so a normal ten year old couldn't run away and look after himself for any length of time, but Mycroft was so far removed from normal – I just was sure Will would be the same. And then, there was another issue, that Mycroft was clearly gutted, absolutely beside himself about. Will had written to him some time before; in hindsight, he was clearly asking in a roundabout way if the abuse he was suffering was _normal_." Lestrade swallowed, clearly wincing at the memory. "The poor little sod thought Will was asking him about puberty; wet dreams, masturbation and so on. He wrote back, reassuring him that it _was_ all totally normal, and nothing to worry about."

"Oh, God. Poor Mycroft", groaned John, glancing towards Sherlock, and taking in the set jaw. He squeezed again, not following out loud with the obvious "_Poor Sherlock_".

Lestrade nodded. "He could never get it out of his head; felt responsible I suppose. That was one of the things that helped me believe Will could still be alive – he'd trust nobody after that; he'd have extra incentive for staying hidden. The other thing, that I forgot to mention, was that Will's fingerprints showed up on the albums in the shed."

John turned to Sherlock in surprise. The dark head nodded, once.

"I followed him. When I still lived there. He always looked shifty when he talked about his allotment. I broke in one day and found the albums – that's when I realised I had to run for it."

"Jesus."

"Stupid, really. If I'd actually thought about it rationally without getting it all entangled in an emotional mire, I could have stopped it there and then, and spared several other children from ongoing maltreatment."

"Oh, come off it, Sherlock. It started when you were _nine._ You just didn't have the life experience to know quite how horrendously criminal it all was, and you were nowhere near fully developed emotionally," snorted John. Sherlock just shrugged, thinking that many people would still make that claim about him today, then motioned for Lestrade to keep speaking. The man nodded.

"Just for the record, I agree with John. Anyway, the case stayed officially open of course, and I asked to stay assigned to it. Reminders still went out periodically to local forces and social services. Mycroft thought his brother would try to hide in the country rather than the town, if anywhere, and that it was unlikely he'd have headed too far North, as he'd know how cold it could get. Areas that were too touristy seemed out too, so we had narrowed the possibilities down quite a bit, and had contacted the local forces in person where we thought a location looked likely. Mycroft spent every weekend visiting rural districts that he thought seemed a good bet. We never gave up, but we never got anywhere either. Will had just vanished, and I really was finally starting to question whether we'd ever find him."

"You wouldn't have, if I'd stayed healthy," muttered Sherlock.

"Probably," agreed Lestrade. "But there was always a high chance that a small child faring for himself in the open countryside was going to get ill. Will stayed inconspicuous for thirteen months…"

"_Thirteen months?_" John cut in in astonishment. "You were gone for _thirteen months_ when you were _ten_? God, no wonder Mycroft's so overprotective. How did you manage it? You had to have had help, surely?"

"I was hardly going to trust anyone enough to go running to them for help after Avery's little performance, was I?" snapped Sherlock caustically. "I couldn't even convince myself that I wouldn't be handed straight back to him. Mycroft's blunder with that letter had me convinced it was unwise to trust _anybody_. I looked after myself."

"But you were ten!"

"Eleven, by the end of it, John."

"How did you survive on your own?"

"He set up camp," said Lestrade, with a strange look on his face; sad, but with awe clearly discernible. "Took just enough survival kit, chose a godforsaken isolated farm and an abandoned shed that he _deduced _nobody ever bothered to go into, set up a tent, table, food storage, even a bloody homemade shower. Just over four miles from the nearest town, he survived mostly on leftovers from the supermarket bins. And, get this, he continued educating himself – joined the local library, took out books on everything he'd expect to do in school and beyond, and by all accounts, had himself up beyond GCSE level by the time we found him, not to mention the martial arts books."

There was no mistaking the raw admiration on Lestrade's face now, and Sherlock was suddenly embarrassed.

"I didn't want to be at a disadvantage as an adult, that's all. Perfectly logical," he muttered, blushing slightly, then noisily blowing his nose to conceal it.

"You are extraordinary. Completely extraordinary", stated John, shaking his head. The detective was just well enough to visibly preen at the praise, although he attempted to conceal his pleasure.

"Staying alive is hardly extraordinary, John. It's just maintaining the status quo."

"Nope, sorry mate. Got to agree. Extraordinary it is," asserted Lestrade. "And, as you said, we only found you because you got ill." He turned to John. "He used to chat to the librarian. She assumed at first he was just a bit… not exactly neglected, just a bit overlooked and lonely. He spun his stories very carefully, see. Most of the time. But she liked him, and when he started coming in looking thin and ill, she started worrying. He made a few little mistakes too; guess he's only human, and he was young. Once, he told her it was his birthday, and he'd forgotten he'd given a false date of birth. She wouldn't have worried normally, but he'd not been looking well, and she'd noticed he only seemed to have two sets of clothes.

"She worried about it for a while, then she bit the bullet, and asked social services to check out little David, as he called himself. That's when they realised that he'd given a false address too.

"Pretty poor social services department up there – they should have been all over this straight away, but they seemed to believe that maybe the kid's parents just didn't want him using the library, as there were a lot of farming families up there who thought education was a bit of a waste of time, and they put it as a low priority."

"_What?_" interjected John, appalled. "Social services are twitchy nowadays if I find a single small bruise on an under-one. What did they think they were doing?"

"God knows", answered Lestrade. "The social worker in question got pretty slammed afterwards. I mean, it was the normal story of over-work and under-resourcing, but this one took a special level of incompetent laziness. You can see how cases like Baby P and Victoria Climbie can happen when the system breaks down. Just as well that Mrs Elis was an ingenious woman. She had enough common sense to realise this kid didn't have the local accent, so wouldn't fit in with the farmer's kid theory, and started to wonder if he could be a runaway. So she decided not to wait for social services to get around to doing something, looked at when he'd joined the library, and started to go through microfiches of the Daily Mail from that time back, thinking that they'd be the sort of paper most likely to lap up the missing kid stories. And, of course, she found him."

"An impressive piece of research. I always thought she was an excellent librarian. She works for the Bodleian now", conceded Sherlock drily.

"He'd changed his appearance quite a lot, but she still recognised him. She contacted the numbers from the papers at the time, and got directed to me. I was up there like a shot to interview her, and I took one of Will's school exercise books with me, to compare with the handwriting on the library card. It was the same. I let my superiors know, and, to be fair, they were pretty on the ball with it this time. Mrs Elis said that Will usually came in on a Saturday. This was Friday, so we thought it was best just to wait for him to show. We didn't want to spook him, so we waited nearby with Mrs Elis ready to phone us when he turned up, rather than have the police waiting right outside.

"Unfortunately, they got a bit excited in the local station, and attended the scene themselves, even though they called us to let us know they were en route. Will, being sharp as a needle, spotted the uniforms, and escaped through the bathroom window.

"By this time, it was over my head, and the bosses were getting together a formal search, but me and Mrs Elis were worried that it was all taking too long. He obviously wasn't well, see, when he came in. Thin, sweaty, breathless, pale – bit like right now really, but worse. And he'd obviously fallen from the first floor bathroom window and hurt himself – there was quite a bit of blood on the floor. I mean, up until now, it seemed that not following procedure had been a recurrent problem, but now, it seemed we'd gone the other way round. We'd hung around for over two hours making phone calls and arrangements, and still nothing was actually being _done_.

"Then Mrs Elis mentioned an idea that seemed totally barmy at first mention, but might just work. Her cousin looked after the beagles for a posh public school from near the border, and one of the dogs was apparently a bit famous for his tracking. I was a bit dubious, but Mrs Elis suggested we give old Tobi a chance to follow Will's scent. Her cousin came rattling along in an ancient Land Rover within an hour and a half, and this manic dog came leaping up, running in circles and chasing its own tail. We took him out to the courtyard round the back of the library, and he was off like a shot! At first, we could hardly keep up with him, and it was just as well I had Mrs Elis with me, as he only understood instructions in Welsh. Every now and again, he'd slow up, run around howling, then he'd pick up the scent and be off again.

"We were off up the side of a bloody mountain, and I was beginning to think the mutt was on the wrong track, so to speak, when we found a patch of mud with hand and knee prints in it. Small – a kid's. He'd obviously fallen and got back up again.

"From then on, we could quite often just follow the footprints themselves, and almost didn't need Tobi, although he obviously made it quicker. I was getting worried, as the tracks were obviously weaving all over the place, and he kept falling over. At one spot, we found a notebook with his handwriting, a few pens, textbooks, half empty water bottle, other bits and bobs – he must've emptied out his rucksack.

"We were seriously worried about his health by now, but the mobile phone brick-thing they'd given me had no signal, even for a 999 call, so I couldn't contact anyone.

"Eventually, we got to this run down, isolated farm, and I dived in to ask if I could use their phone for back up. The farmer was helpful enough, and mentioned he thought he'd seen a kid hanging about the place now we mentioned it, and a few bits of scrap had gone missing from his old barn, but he hadn't really thought much of it.

"With medical back up on its way, we followed Tobi up to this little shed. The farmer said he hadn't used it in years.

"Behind the shed, out of sight, the brambles and bracken were all trampled down. I pushed open the door, and there was a tent in there, and I could just make out the outline of a child lying down inside. I took a step in, and the smell was suddenly terrible…"

"Yes, thank you for that detail," interrupted Sherlock, sourly.

"Sorry, mate. I don't mean it was dirty – it was remarkably clean in fact. Just that you were obviously ill…"

"_Thank you_. I don't think that detail is entirely necessary to the narrative, do you?"

"Okay, okay. Anyway, I went in, and there was this poor little kid, face covered in blood and…never mind… thin, pale, burning up with fever, and barely conscious. I tried to wake him, but he only moaned and shivered. His breathing was all wrong, too fast, really laboured. I remember when Jenny got that bronchiolitis thing as a baby; it was like that, but much worse. I felt his pulse, and it was racing and thready.

"I panicked a bit, scooped him up, and raced down the hill towards the farm, the farmer running ahead to hurry up the ambulance. He weighed next to nothing - I almost thought we'd got the wrong kid at first, as I knew Will was eleven, and I wouldn't have put this poor little scrap as much older than seven or eight, but he's got a distinctive face. He woke up a bit when he was moved, started whimpering, grabbing onto my shirt with these skinny, hot little hands. I just held onto him until the ambulance arrived. As they were loading him onto the stretcher, I quickly phoned Mycroft, told them we'd found him – as soon as he'd turned eighteen, he'd applied for legal guardianship status in the absence of his Dad, and with his Mum still only just recovering, and it'd just finished going through.

"I sat with him in the ambulance, and as they took him through A&E. He had a really nasty pneumonia with a what-d'ya-call it – pus in the lung - an empyema, that's it, on top of the head injury from the fall, and they had to get antibiotics and fluids into him urgently in A&E, then get him to theatre to drain the pus out of his chest. He was due to go to intensive care, but he settled down a lot, and they just filled him with sedatives and brought him back to the ward. I sat with him afterwards, and would you believe it, the first thing he did when he woke up was start deducing me!"

He beamed at Sherlock, who gave a small smile back in response. Then his face darkened again.

"He obviously wasn't sure if we knew who he was. He told me his name was David - I was going to fill him in with the details when he was properly awake, but it was just bad luck that he asked to go out to the toilet, and he must have heard one of the nurses calling out that Will Holmes' guardian was outside, and he thought it must have been Avery." He paused for a minute. This next memory was obviously upsetting to him. "He ran. The poor little bugger ran, with a chest drain in, blue around the lips and still sick as a dog, onto the fire escape. I ran after him; I was calling out to him, trying to explain, but I think he was too frightened to hear me." He shuddered.

"What happened next was awful. A nurse came out of door on the fire escape below him, and he was trapped. If only they hadn't've been there, we could have caught up with him easily enough, but he was obviously completely petrified. He climbed over the hand rail, and jumped from two floors up."

A silence fell.

"I haven't consciously made a decision to keep jumping off hospital buildings, you know," intoned Sherlock, in a doomed attempt to lighten the mood. John's forehead was deeply furrowed, and Lestrade was obviously caught in a very upsetting memory. After a minute, the policeman began to speak again.

"There was an awful crack, like a gunshot, as he hit the ground – he'd broken his left leg. Thankfully, he managed to avoid killing himself - I mean, thank god really, what with the drain, or possibly bashing his head again. I legged it after him down the stairs. The next moment was one of the worst things I've ever seen in my whole career. He started trying to _drag himself away_, broken leg and all, and he was _screaming_ in terror. I've never seen anything like it; he was completely beside himself, eyes standing half out of his head, fixed on the staircase, just staring, absolutely out of it, screaming '_no no no_' – God, it was awful. I tried to calm him down, held him in my arms, and he _still_ tried to drag himself away, still screaming. I say it again, I've never seen fear like that."

"Not one of my finest moments. In my defence, I was probably hypoxic, and had rather a lot of drugs in my system."

"You don't need a defence, Sherlock", said Lestrade, gently. "You were a little boy who'd undergone horrific experiences, and it must have been like waking up into a nightmare."

"It was," came the quiet confession. For a moment, Sherlock was back there, hunched on the ground, peripherally aware of the points of excruciating pain around his body, yet consumed with the overarching fear that Avery was about to come down those stairs, and he instinctively curled into himself, never more grateful for the anchoring hand of John on his shoulder.

"What happened then?" croaked John, as the silence dragged on. Lestrade seemed to recall himself again, and he continued.

"Mycroft came down the stairs. And Sherlock's Mum."

-oOo-

_Thanks, everyone, for your kind support of this story - especially those of you who've writtn multiple or beautifully detailed reviews. You've really kept my enthusiasm going with all those little stimulations of my reward centre! _


	27. Chapter 27: Family Reunion

**Chapter 27**

**Family Reunion**

It took Sherlock's assailed mind the length of the staircase to process that the person coming down it was his mother. Later, he couldn't remember seeing Mycroft there at all.

The screams that had been echoing in his ears died down to loud whimpering, and it was so hard to breath, and everything hurt so much…

Then she was there.

She was holding him close, and it was her scent that convinced him that this had to be real. She smelt right.

Suddenly, he was aware he was crying, and that he had been for some time. It was different now, because she was holding him close, and he could let go, and she would manage everything. Uncle Avery couldn't hurt him when she was here – that was not a reasoned, rational decision, that was just the truth.

Then he became even more aware of the pain, and he cried because of that. And he was out of breath, desperately, agonisingly out of breath, and he gasped like a fish out of water, until someone slipped a mask over his face, and it became a little less difficult.

Mum was still talking to him as he was moved onto a stretcher, his leg now immobilised in a fluorescent plastic foam splint. He asked why it was such a bright colour, but he didn't hear the answer.

Then there was the slow procession to the accident and emergency ward, Mum still holding his hand, and bending her head down to his level, so that he could see her. When he hurt, and looked away for a moment, she just told him to keep his eyes fixed on her, and he felt a little better. He wasn't sure what else she was saying, but it was nice, he thought.

His leg was badly broken. People around him were worried, but Mum was there, and that was OK. Time passed. He thought he slept. He was still out of sync with his surroundings, but Mum was there, and that was OK.

They were wheeling down the corridor again. They were in a small room with lots of shelves, with lots of packets and boxes on the shelves, and a row of deep metal sinks. There were doors at either end of the room, and he caught a glimpse through the far door of bright equipment and lights. Then a doctor dressed all in blue was injecting some white stuff into the plastic tube in his hand, and he felt overwhelmingly sleepy, but Mum was there, and that was OK.

There were snatches of things happening afterwards, of a long room with lots of nurses in blue and green, and lots of other people in beds. Of moving again. People had called him Will, and he thought he had protested – they seemed to be calling him Sherlock now. But it was all too fragmented to make any sense.

The first time he was properly awake, he found himself back in his cubicle on the children's ward. He looked around for his Mum, calling out, and she was there in a soft rustle of fabric, and a thin mist of scent.

"Hello, my darling. I'm here." He blinked slightly. It seemed almost strange that he could understand her words. He held her hand tightly.

"Are you better now?" he croaked, as this was an enormously important question.

"Lots better than I was, my poor little sausage. I have to be on medication for a long time, but it should stop me getting so ill again. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you for such a long time." Her voice had gone a bit thick and wrong, but he supposed she must be upset that he had suffered as he had. He really didn't want to upset her, it worried him a lot that she might have to leave again, so he squeezed back as hard as he could when she drew him into a hug, even though it really hurt the drain in his side.

She drew back a little, but stayed stroking his forehead and holding his hand. He stared up at her, searching her face for changes. The muscles in her face were working normally again. When she had been ill, they had been all slack and blank, her face artificially smoothed. He hadn't liked it; her face was normally so expressive. Now, everything was mobile again, but she had more lines. Deep lines of worry drawn on her face. It was upsetting, and he felt tremendously guilty as he realised a lot of that worry must be down to him.

"Please don't you be sorry Mum. You were ill. I'm sorry I ran away."

"You are my brave, brave boy. It must have seemed the only way, and you've done so well. We know what happened."

Shelock tensed in fear. What did they know? Would he be punished when he was better? _Could _Mum protect him from Avery? It had seemed so certain when he first saw her, but was that just a little boy's confindence in the omnipotence of his parents, totally unjustified in real life? What if she wasn't strong enough to look after him? And he couldn't tell her - he couldn't worry her with what had happened after he'd already put her through the anxiety of him running away.

"Sherlock. Avery is dead."

Dead. _Dead_?

The words rung in his head. Did that mean… what did that mean? He was trembling, but he couldn't account for it.

"Dead?"

"Yes. Not everyone thinks I should tell you everything yet, as you're still not very well, but I know my boy, and I think you'll be better knowing all you can know. So - we know what Avery did to you. That he… touched you inappropriately. Hurt you. We know about the horrible photographs in his shed, and that you saw them. And, you have to understand, you are not to blame for any of it. You are a child. You are his victim, horrid as that sounds, but you must not take _any _of the blame for this, _mon cher_."

It was like a tidal wave of relief. He didn't like being a victim, but it was better than being a criminal. His Mum carried on talking.

"The things he did to you are the _most_ illegal things in our society. Abusing a child, as Avery did to you, is considered _so_ terrible that the prisoners in the jail, violent thieves and murderers, will attack and beat up or kill people who did what Avery did, because even they know that it's an unspeakably evil thing to do to a child, especially because the child often doesn't realised that there's a way out."

He'd been right then. If he'd told somebody, Avery would have been locked up and he wouldn't have needed to run away. He realised his face was wet. Mum dried some of the tears with her thumbs.

"I was stupid," he croaked, feeling a new source of shame; a hot, angry one, directed at himself this time.

"No, my darling, no. Avery was a clever man. I have no doubt he made you feel like you couldn't tell anyone. You may be very grown up for your age, but you were still a little boy when he started hurting you, and he was supposed to be the person you trusted."

"I thought the police wouldn't help me. They didn't believe me before."

"They weren't to know that such a small child would be so very clever. It would be an illogical conclusion to come to, if you think about it – most small children aren't cleverer than the police. But I understand that it would make you think that way."

"How did Uncle Avery die?" It seemed so strange to say the words. It was as if his Uncle had split in two, now he was gone, and there was the kind, funny man, who let him ride on his back, who read to him, who he adored and who seemed to adore him back, and the monster who had dogged his worst dreams for months and months. Grief warred with satisfaction and relief, until he really didn't know how to feel.

"He killed himself, Sherlock. He knew he was going to get caught, and I think he felt terribly guilty, too. He wrote a letter, saying how very sorry he was – as he should be."

That was a shock.

"How did he do it?" Maybe, if he had all the information, it would make more sense.

"He jumped from the top of Deep Dene quarry. It would have been quick." He wasn't sure if Mum was relieved or resentful about that.

Sherlock thought about climbing the quarry, above the sharp rocks, hewn away to make jagged square teeth, the detritus of broken blocks of stone with spindly weeds pushing up through the gaps at the bottom; remembered the feel of dry, rough stone beneath his fingers, the wind lifting his hair, looking down and the dizzy feeling at the thought of falling and being dashed to pieces. He imagined it again now; the rush of air, the ground rushing up faster and faster, and then the collision: different bits of rock would strike different parts of the fragile body in different places, snapping bone and tearing flesh, spilling the body's soft insides out. He felt slightly sick.

"How did he know he was going to get caught?"

"Two days after you ran away, Mycroft realised he was acting strangely, and followed him to the shed in the allotments. He found the photographs, but Avery heard him coming and hit him over the head. God knows what would have happened next, but that young policeman who's been sitting by your bed had been keeping an eye on the place and interrupted them. He must have known then it was hopeless."

_Two days_. _I hadn't even found the Hay Wain by that time. All that work, all that time, I could have been home._

A strange buzzing was filling his head, as his brain made valiant but fleeting efforts to process all the thought filaments that were tangling together within it. Many of his thoughts were conflicting, and he felt too tired to resolve them. The buzzing increased in volume, until it became an almost unbearable pressure, and he clutched at his head, torn between wanting the buzzing to escape, and stopping it blowing his skull off. Then the pressure spread to his chest and throat, and everything ached.

His Mum was holding him, and he buried his face into where her neck met her shoulder, only realising he was sobbing when he heard her tell him to have a good cry, and that everything would be alright in the end. He breathed in deeply between gasps, and she still smelt familiar, of _home_ and _safe_. He thought again about how worried she must have been, and felt guilty. He felt glad, overjoyed, that she was here, and real, not the strange shadow of herself she had been when he had last seen her. He felt relieved, and angry, and fiercely glad that his Uncle was dead, whilst simultaneously sad, regretful and guilty. He longed to be home, but he didn't want to go back to his own bed, where Avery had hurt him.

After a while, his mind seemed to empty a little, and he just let himself rest with his mother, glad of the interlude of quiet.

He slept then, and when he woke up, Mycroft was there. His brother looked a lot older than he remembered. He experienced a brief flare of resentment that Mycroft and foisted Avery on him in the first place, but it faded quickly. He hadn't had time to feel wary, before Mycroft was seizing his hand. His head was still woolly from sleep and medication, so it took him a while to realise his elder brother was gabbling a profuse apology. He mentioned that letter, and Sherlock felt the blush rising to his face as the awkward young man tried to explain to him what he had thought Sherlock was describing in it. He didn't think he liked seeing Mycroft flustered. It didn't sit right with the universe. He tried to change the subject.

"I hear you were the one who thought Avery had done something wrong".

Mycroft's finger's squeezed around his, involuntarily, Sherlock thought.

"It didn't seem right. The way he was acting. There were details that didn't add up; between what the school told me and what he'd said. Little details, such as it being quite plain that you had been in the habit of hiding poor Aramis down the side of your bed." He picked up the raggedy stuffed spaniel as he spoke, running a confirmatory finger down the balder patch on the shoulder where the wall had rubbed the fur short. Sherlock found himself tucking the animal rather defensively under his arm as Mycroft gave him back.

"You'll have to tell me in more detail later, how you worked it out."

"If you wish. I only wish I could have realised something sooner. But at least I realised eventually, and we've been able to remove that threat. I promise, I will never allow anything like this to happen again."

He spoke so earnestly that Sherlock felt a little unnerved again, but conversely fighting a desire to laugh. His big brother seemed a stranger suddenly, and he began to be rather overwhelmed. He allowed his eyes to drift shut, and he could hear Mycroft breathing, feel himself being studied. They stayed like this for some time, until he really could feel himself starting to drift off to sleep. Then Mycroft got up and walked away.

-oOo-

_Many belated thanks for the lovely reviews you've left, and for the favourites and follows. Much appreciated, despite the snails pace of my writing these days. I've just been re-reading the reviews for this story, and getting a real glow - thanks to all of you, but especially those who've gone to so much effort with the detail. _

_And, just so you know, this story has a fair way to go yet...  
_


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